The Culture School in Bergen will cancel concerts

Canceling concerts is like telling children that they can only train, not play matches.

This week got we, parents of children and young people who play the violin at Bergen Cultural School, letter from the principal with information about hastily introduced financial cuts in the school’s operations, as a result of a “precarious financial situation”. Apart from substitute stops, the school will not pay for concert venues and accompanists for concerts.

The savings measures will be implemented from 1 May 2024, at a time when pupils and teachers have already been working for several months in the run-up to summer concerts. Concert venues have been booked, and agreements have been made with accompanists. But without funds for this, the concerts will be difficult to carry out.

For the uninitiated, canceling these concerts can be compared to the following message from the football coach to the team: “Now it is spring and time for series games, but unfortunately we have to inform you that there will only be regular training in the future, as all the games have been canceled for financial reasons. »

We have many years of experience practicing with our children, accompanying them to lessons with the teacher and participating in the preparations for concerts. We know a lot about what motivates children, and how the path to good performance, enjoyment of music and development is created.

Learning a string instrument is a long-term, painstaking task, where the teachers have to look after motivation here and now, and at the same time think about what gives good development in the long term.

At Bergen Cultural School, we have experienced teachers at a very high level. Over many decades, solid work has been done to build up a stringing environment that both safeguards the breadth and allows talents to assert themselves nationally and internationally. The austerity measures could ruin this work.

The decision gets us to wonder if the culture school’s management understands this. We know that the concert is an accepted part of the training. We see it as the very essence of music education. Because why do we do music? For our own part, yes, but art and culture also have higher ambitions. It is something we do together, and something that must be communicated and experienced together. Communicating the music to others is a necessary part of music education.

Giving a concert is for many students the most fun, and what makes them continue to play. Just as it is unthinkable to have football without football matches, it is unthinkable to do music without getting training in, and the joy of, performing the music for others. Students meet at student concerts. Here they listen and let each other inspire them. They are shown how far they have come, and get the desire to work further.

Culture School in Bergen does not have its own concert hall, and is dependent on renting, both for reasons of space, acoustics and other suitability. Most of the string repertoire is played with piano accompaniment. Demanding that the teachers plan concerts without a pianist, and without a venue, is frivolous and ignorant. It’s like asking the football team to play a match without referees or a football pitch.

When we pay for a student place, it naturally comes with being able to hold a concert! If the cuts presented by the rector are carried out, we also cannot understand that the School of Culture will be able to fulfill its social mission, which is to ensure public education of both breadth and talent in art and culture.

We, and several others, have children and young people who invest a lot in music. They practice a lot every day, and some will eventually compete with students from other parts of the country, and from abroad, for study places and jobs, and become tomorrow’s professional musicians.

How should they get the necessary concert training going forward in Bergen? And who should they play with if they don’t have parents who can play themselves, or pay for an accompanist? The cuts open up differences between the students, which we expect neither the Cultural School nor the politicians want.

We fear that the cut proposals are part of a trend that will lead to the destruction of the string community, which has been built up in Bergen over decades. If it really is not possible to find the small money this is really about to give students in the cultural city of Bergen decent conditions, we hope the headmaster with professional weight and outside voice takes the time to explain to the authorities in the city how everything is connected when it comes to learning children something so difficult, so valuable and so important, as playing an instrument!