The acclaimed chamber orchestra has launched the appeal to enable it to 'play on' following its loss of Arts Council funding The acclaimed chamber orchestra Britten Sinfonia has launched a £1 million appeal to enable it to ‘play on’. The appeal following the withdrawal of the Sinfonia's funding as an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation, which has left the orchestra with a financial shortfall of £1 million over the following three years. A range of high-profile musical figures have lent their support to the Play On appeal.
These comprise composers Steve Reich and Master of the King’s Music Judith Weir, Sir James MacMillan, Thomas Adès and Nico Muhly. Seven number Masters of the Queen's/King's Music Performers lending their support comprise singers Dame Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams, trumpeter Alison Balsom, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. They're joined by others connected with Britten Sinfonia, including an NHS nurse and a teacher, in a film to launch Britten Sinfonia’s Play On appeal. Based in Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia is the only professional orchestra in the E of England.
Britten Sinfonia’s work in the region typically reaches around 14.000 people annually. Alongside residencies in Norwich and Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, Britten Sinfonia performs and makes music with communities and schools, and in hospitals, elderly care settings and prisons. The Sinfonia has toured to the USA, S America, India and across Europe. It was the first UK orchestra to play at Hamburg’s newly opened ElbPhilharmonie in two thousand-seventeenth, and with choral ensemble The Sixteen, it gave the first ever live streamed concert the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.
The ensemble has commissioned nearly two hundred fifty new works, both emerging composers and some of the biggest names in classical music. It's collaborated with composers, directors, choreographers and musicians across the musical spectrum, including Anoushka Shankar, Father John Misty, Rufus Wainwright, Michael Clark, Richard Alston and Urja Desai Thakore of Pagrav Dance Company. Steve Reich has described Britten Sinfonia as 'a particularly finely tuned chamber orchestra of enormous sensitivity.' To donate to Britten Sinfonia’s ‘Play On’ Appeal, go to playon.brittensinfonia.com Meurig Bowen, Britten Sinfonia Artistic Director and Chief Executive comments: 'We never took for granted this longstanding public funding, and cherished the skill it gave us to create bolder programming choices, to bring into being so much newly composed music, and to have a wide-reaching presence throughout the E of England in concert halls, schools, health and community settings.
Culture secretary meets with leading musicians to discuss the future of the industry after lockdown 'Now, everything that's celebrated internationally, nationally and regionally is at risk. This level of skill, expertise and extraordinary musical synergy is rare; it's taken three decades to build, and simply can not be replicated overnight. 'We are so pleased of the range and quality of our work, and are determined that this loss of ACE funding won't reduce or degrade what we do. The collective trust in the importance of this – for audiences, communities and the wider cultural ecology – is too grand for that to happen.'
