In Sunday’s (7/10) Guardian (London), Ian Birrell writes, “Idrissa Soumaoro should have been rehearsing with the celebrated Malian musicians Amadou & Mariam for a show at the Manchester international festival when I called him. Instead, he was stuck in a hotel in Senegal. … Soumaoro, one of the most respected musicians in west Africa, flew from his home in Mali to Dakar three weeks ago to obtain a visa for Britain. … His passport was sent to Ghana for processing and he was left stranded in the Senegalese capital, his manager having to scramble out emergency funds for food and lodging. Now it is touch and go whether he will make the opening night. … Non-Europeans wanting to entertain British audiences must endure a bureaucratic nightmare which, combined with rising costs, increasing delays and occasional consular rudeness is deterring more and more of them from coming here … For all our talk of global engagement and our openness to foreign businesses and footballers, this nation is earning a shameful reputation for hostility to artists from outside Europe. Composers and cinema directors who are household names have said they will no longer come here. One cellist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra who flew in to play an unpaid show was grilled for eight hours then deported for having the wrong visa. Even Grigory Sokolov, perhaps the world’s finest concert pianist, has taken the UK off his touring schedule in anger at our intrusive visa process.”
Posted July 11, 2011
