Savage Reduction
I read Sir Nick Serota’s article a couple of days ago in the Guardian with some interest. What particularly struck me was his mention of an “inevitable … savage reduction in support for individual writers, artists and composers”.
It strikes me this is not the best climate to be a composer, and his bleak picture of the future of the arts over the next few years compares well with what I have read elsewhere. He talks of a “discouragement of innovation”, things which Britain has been particularly good at, especially in sustaining the smaller art entities that actually contribute to a thriving scene. With the Arts Council taking massive cuts (possibly up to 30%) it may be time to either put away the score paper or do something radically different.
