“Two of Britain’s most influential conductors, Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Mark Elder, have warned of a ‘devastated landscape’ in classical music after the pandemic in which orchestras may not survive,” writes Mark Brown in Wednesday’s (6/10) Guardian (U.K.). “With no income, many arts organizations are burning through reserves and, without targeted help, some will not survive. In a letter to the Guardian, Rattle, the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Elder, the music director of the Hallé Orchestra, describe classical music’s situation as desperate…. The government has set up a cultural renewal taskforce [but] … no representatives from music are on the taskforce…. ‘Learning to play while remaining distanced from each other will be much harder than it may initially seem,’ Elder and Rattle write…. ‘The first year of performing with fewer musicians to a much smaller public will be our toughest time, and we will need a helping hand to make it through…. In the UK we must gain time by learning what has already been proved to work [in Europe]…. Until we have some practical idea of what our future might entail, musicians in our country will continue to feel out in the wilderness.’ ”
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