In Thursday’s (11/7) Birmingham Post (Birmingham, U.K.), Graeme Brown writes that the U.K.’s City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is enjoying “the busiest touring year in its history.… Dozens of musicians leave tomorrow for a tour of Germany, Taiwan and Japan…. Chief executive Stephen Maddock said: ‘This is actually the busiest touring year we have ever had. We will have done a total of 38 performances outside the UK by the end of our financial year in March. We will have been to Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Taiwan, Japan, Luxembourg and Austria. The March tour is 15 concerts in 17 days—that is really tough.’ … The CBSO is one of the very few large scale orchestras which gets less than half of its money through public funding…. [Maddock] expects £2.1 million from ticket sales in Birmingham this year, and then a further £2.1 million from touring…. ‘The CBSO is one of the things a lot of people know about Birmingham if they don’t know a great deal else. They tend to know about its industrial heritage, and Aston Villa, and they may have heard of the CBSO. I think that is an important thing for city investment.’ ”
Posted November 8, 2013
