The petition
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE TO SIGN THE PETITION. THANK YOU.
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At a meeting on 25 March 2007, the Board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland decided to merge the two existing orchestras, the NYSOI (members aged between 18 and 24) and NYOI (members aged between 12 and 18) into one orchestra. This decision was announced last week on the National Youth Orchestra's website, ww.nyoi.ie. Please read this announcement very carefully.
The National Youth Orchestra has been searching for a new General Manager since March 2006, when Joanna Crooks announced her retirement after 11 seasons. At this time (April 2007) a new General Manager has not been found. The organisation is without a Chief Executive – this is no time to make such a momentous decision about the future of a national cultural and educational institution. We know that more young people than ever are studying classical music. The Arts Council of Ireland, one of the main funders of NYOI, was not consulted about this decision.
As announced on the website Mr Gearoid Grant is to conduct an amalgamated orchestra of players aged under 21, with guest conductors invited periodically. Mr Grant has had an incredible association with the NYOI, and his 25th Anniversary was duly celebrated last year with special concerts around Ireland.
However, the orchestras of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland should be conducted by a selection of conductors, and not by just one individual. Artists with international careers must be invited to Ireland to work with the orchestra each year, thus bringing their rich, diverse artistic experiences to young Irish musicians.
Donagh Collins has resigned form the Board of NYOI in response to this decision, having been associated with NYOI for 21 years, as cellist, staff member, orchestra manager and director. His letter explaining the situation was printed in the Irish Times on Friday, 6 April 2007.
Please give your support to bring this decision to the attention of the Arts Council and the media, and to all of those who have been associated with NYOI over decades. If you disagree with the decision of the Board of NYOI as announced on its website, please sign up to this petition, and send the link to family, friends, and all those whom you know from your days in the youth orchestra.
You can forward a link to this petition; www.ipetitions.com/petition/ny...
This petition can be signed not only by past members, but by parents, friends, and anybody who genuinely feels that this decision is backward and wrong. We all want to see NYOI moving forward into the future with strong, appropriate and exciting artistic policies and good management.
DONAGH COLLINS
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IRISH TIMES Wednesday, 18th April 2007
Editorial
The decision of the board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) to merge its two orchestras has been greeted with the kind of response that such a retrograde step deserves - a unanimous outcry of protest, but also understandable bafflement. The NYOI has been an exemplary training ground for young Irish musicians whose performances have been acclaimed by demanding critics, and whose ambassadorial roles in front of audiences abroad we should be proud of. It is a shame that the board appears to be damaging its legacy of achievement and its previous visionary commitment.
Music training in this country has never had much in the way of official support or adequate funding. Like the arts in general, it does not figure in the thinking of those who determine the values that should be passed on to future generations through the education system. It is largely dependent on the efforts of committed individuals or the ability of parents to pay for private tuition.
As the composer Fergus Johnston pointed out in the Letters columns of this newspaper last week, even one of the poorest countries in Europe - Bulgaria - has managed to provide a first-class music education infrastructure and a profusion of nurturing opportunities for its young musicians. It seems that the era in which this country became one of the richest nations of the world, is also one of lost opportunities. Yes, we have been promised the redevelopment of the National Concert Hall into a three-venue complex. But what use is such an addition to the cultural landscape when the State is unwilling to support young creative talent at a more local level?
The claim that the NYOI decision was based on a scarcity of musicians of sufficient calibre is unconvincing and seems bizarre - the downsizing of the orchestra is hardly going to remedy this situation. Rather it is going to limit the opportunity to cultivate young performers. The separation of the two distinct age groups into two orchestral combinations made sense; to have players between the ages of 14 and 21, with their widely varying levels of accomplishment, coming together is wholly illogical.
The NYOI deserves much credit for filling the gap created by State neglect of music education. Minister for Education Mary Hanafin who this week received a petition on the issue, must not only encourage a change of heart by the NYOI but she must also assume responsibility by ensuring that the blueprint for making music education more widely available becomes a reality through the provision of resources. That blueprint happens to be the subject of a seminar in Dublin today, but talk, as they say, is cheap.
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IRISH TIMES Wenesday, 18th April 2007
Letters to the Editor
Madam, - The board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland has acknowledged the contribution over the years of Toyota Ireland, the Department of Education and Science, the Arts Council, RTÉ Lyric FM and The Irish Times. Perhaps these bodies were consulted over recent board decisions.
The board failed to credit or consult parents and players who pay up to 50 per cent of the total budget of the NYOI and are probably the largest single body funding the orchestras. (That they are such substantial contributors is in itself a disgrace, resulting from the scandalous under-funding of music education in Ireland.)
The baffling decision to "amalgamate" the two existing NYOI orchestras, illogical on artistic or educational grounds, has caused such shock-waves among players, parents, teachers and musicians because the board carried out little, if any, research or consultation with any of these groups.
It is simply untrue that there is a shortage in Ireland of proficient young musicians of the requisite standard. There are plenty, including string players.
If some of the most gifted young musicians are not applying to the NYOI for audition, why is this so? This is recruitment, marketing and motivational challenge, not a structural one.
If the rationale for the board's decision is purely financial, it should clearly say so and lay out the facts. Perhaps Ireland, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, will decide that it will not support a youth orchestra.
Perhaps we will choose to have a children's youth orchestra of 12- to 18-year-olds (like the English National Youth Orchestra), or a young adults' youth orchestra of 18 - to 24-year-olds.
Amalgamating the two orchestras, which cater for quite distinct age-groups - into one large orchestra for 14- to 21-year olds - will not nurture young players, will not improve performance standards and is certainly not the solution to recruitment challenges.
Few over-18s will relish playing alongside children aged 14. Nor are the high-quality players likely to be attracted by the removal of the opportunity to work with conductors of international calibre. Few prudent parents will want their 14-year-old heading off for a week's residential rehearsals with young adults. It is manifestly inappropriate and astonishing that the Department of Education and Science should support this.
The board's misguided decision smacks of displacement activity in a management vacuum. The board has failed to recruit a new general manager despite having over a year to do so. It should stop moving the deck-chairs around and start avoiding the iceberg.
- Yours, etc,
MARY CONNELL, Howth Road, Dublin 3.
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IRISH TIMES Tuesdsay, 17th April 2007
Petition to keep youth orchestras given to Minister
SHANE HEGARTY
A petition was handed to the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, yesterday asking that the junior and senior orchestras of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) not be amalgamated.
It follows the resignations before the weekend of two board members, Caitriona Ryan and Nathan Power. Mr Power is the orchestra manager of the senior orchestra.
Four members of the board have now resigned in protest at the decision made by fellow board members.
Under the new structure, the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (ages 12-18) and the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (18-24) would be merged from 2008.
It will create an orchestra with players aged 18-24. The board of NYOI said it was difficult to attract musicians of a requisite standard to justify the running of two orchestras. However, the petition, containing 1,150 signatures, is part of a campaign that has included a musical protest on Dublin’s Grafton Street and the handing out of leaflets at a Handel recital in Temple Bar.
The petition was handed to Ms Hanafin on the steps of the National Concert hall before The Irish Times Music in the Classroom event.
The Department of Education is one of three main funders of the NYOI, alongside Toyota and the Arts Council.
The Arts Council met with the board of the NYOI last week. According to a spokesman for the Council, “discussions are ongoing.”
The NYOI is currently without a general manager since the retirement of Joanna Crooks in August 2006. Ms Crooks has since criticised the delay in recruiting her replacement.
The latest resignations from the board follow those of Donagh Collins and the manager of the younger orchestra, Una McMahon.
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Saturday April 14, 2007
A fourth member of the Board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, Catriona Ryan, has now resigned in protest at the decision to amalgamate both orchestras. This brings the total number of resignations to 4 - Donagh Collins, Una MacMahon, Nathan Power and Catriona Ryan. All 4 former directors have signed this petition.
Una MacMahon was Orchestra Manager of NYOI and Nathan Power was Orchestra Manager of NYSOI. Both are appalled by the recent decision of the Board, and cannot maintain their position as Executive Directors under these circumstances. Neither of these managers was consulted as part of the NYOI's recent 'Strategic Review'.
Their departure must be a major cause of concert for parents and guardians, especially those with members in the former NYOI, as the National Youth Orchestra will have a difficult time recruiting a new orchestra manager with the same experience and expertise - looking after and taking responsibility for young musicians 24 hours a day on residential courses.
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IRISH TIMES Saturday, 14th April 2007
Orchestral manoeuvres in the dark?
Written by Michael Dervan / Edited by Gerry Smyth
ArtScape: The board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) has stirred up a hornets' nest by announcing a decision "to amalgamate its two existing orchestras, the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (ages 12-18) and National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (ages 18-24)", writes Michael Dervan.
The restructuring, which is to take effect in 2008, will create an orchestra with players aged between 14 and 21. Gearóid Grant, a member of the NYOI board, and the conductor of the younger orchestra, is to take overall musical charge.
It's a puzzling package of decisions on a number of counts, not least because the NYOI actually consists of four rather than two orchestras. In addition to the two that are to be merged, there are also the NYOI Camerata Strings, directed by Michael d'Arcy (this was founded in 2003 as an initiative of the players themselves), and the National String Training Orchestra, directed by Candace Whitehead (which, according to the NYOI website, "offers intensive training to players who have not quite reached the standard of the NYOI at audition").
The proposed restructuring makes no mention of the fate of either of these. This is extraordinary, given that both of them explicitly address the major issue the board is using to justify the orchestral amalgamation. The board states that "recruitment of sufficient players, of the requisite standard, to support two orchestras - particularly in the string sections - has become a significant challenge, especially in recent years".
From the perspective of the older ensemble, it's rather hard to see how an orchestra of 14- to 21-year-olds is at all guaranteed to be able to recruit higher-quality string players than one using 18- to 24-year-olds. Logically, this would require that there is a greater pool of good players in the age band 14 to 18 than in the age band 21 to 24. Surely those extra years of training and playing have some positive effects? No evidence on this front is provided in the board's statement.
Gearóid Grant's elevation is coupled with a decision that "world-class, international conductors" will appear as guest conductors every two years. They currently appear twice a year, so this proposal will greatly dilute young Irish musicians' exposure to top-quality conductors, a factor that may introduce recruitment difficulties of its own.
The NYOI's former general manager Joanna Crooks - who masterminded the orchestra's complete concert performances of Wagner's Ring in Limerick and Birmingham in 2002, and who worked in a voluntary capacity - retired last August, having given six months' notice to the board. The board has twice advertised for a general manager, but has not yet appointed one. It now finds itself in the final stages of the strangest of recruitment processes. Simply put, whoever fills the post is going to end up doing a very different kind of management job to the one they originally applied for.
Two board members have already resigned as a result of the decision to amalgamate: Donagh Collins (a director of the London music agent Askonas Holt, and brother of the pianist Finghin) and Una McMahon (who is also orchestra manager of the younger orchestra). Others are believed to be considering their positions.
Collins describes the board as being "a few steps away from the reality of the orchestra on an everyday basis". He points to the hiatus in management and a limitation in touring as factors in attracting players.
He also says there are questions to be asked in respect of governance, the handling of the recruitment process, and conflict-of-interest issues within the board. "A hundred musicians a year are not going to get the opportunity to play in the new, dumbed-down orchestra," he said. "Even though I didn't become a professional performer, my interest in following a musical career was greatly firmed by my experiences in the NYOI." An online petition (www.ipetitions.com/ petition/nyoi1) has already attracted about 250 names, among them the University of Limerick's Professor of Music, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin; conductor Alexander Anissimov; composers Raymond Deane and Brent Parker; the leader of the Callino Quartet, Sarah Sexton; violinist Michael d'Arcy; and former chief executive of the National Chamber Choir, Karina Lundström.
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IRISH TIMES Friday, 13th April 2007
Letters to the Editor
Madam, - Letters to this paper bemoaning the effective disbandment of the junior section of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland raise many relevant issues in the context of your coverage of Culture Matters, the recent seminar run by the Council of National Cultural Institutions.
It is interesting that other than letters to The Irish Times from people with links to the youth orchestras, there has been no media coverage – to my knowledge – of these radical changes. This is symptomatic of where the problem lies.
In Wednesday’s Irish Times, Arminta Wallace asked: “Does culture matters, and if so, why?” She reported that the CNCI seminar urged political parties to make culture an election issue. The thought that classical music might be an issue for the majority of the population or become an election issue is currently so far from reality that, unfortunately, it is laughable.
The board of the NYOI has announced that one of the reasons for its decision is that “recruitment of sufficient players, of the requisite standard, to support two orchestras – particularly in the string sections – has become a significant challenge, especially in recent years.” Surely such a lack of sufficient players is exactly why as many opportunities as possible are needed for young musicians. Can you imagine a similar statement from the GAA or the IRFU: “Due to the lack of good junior players we have decided to abandon youth football”? There would be a national outcry.
The lack of a coherent national music education system, described recently at an Arts Council forum on promoting music as “the elephant in the room”, is at the centre of the problem. While it has never been the role of the youth orchestras to fill the vacuum created by this lack, the NYOI has been one of the pillars of practical musical education in Ireland. To reduce its role is further to marginalise music in Irish society.
At a time when the Government has made the single largest commitment ever to music in Ireland with the announcement of the redevelopment of the National Concert Hall, it is alarming to consider that a major resource for creating potential audiences is being lost.
Music education, including the opportunity of playing in a National Youth Orchestra, is the major factor in developing an audience for symphonic repertoire, the backbone of programming at any great concert hall. The vast majority of young concert-goers at the National Concert Hall are people who have performed with one or other of the National Youth Orchestras and have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to develop an interest in this music.
In July 2006 in an Irish Times review of a performance by the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (under-18s) Michael Dungan remarked: “It’s sobering to reflect on how these talented and musically developed players are virtually all drawn from a privileged sub-section of Irish youth whose parents can support them with time and financing. Thousands more equally musical children enjoy no such advantages. Until there is a real and meaningful music education for every child in this State, youth orchestras of this calibre will remain a source of pleasure and inspiration that is unduly rare.”
So now, instead of making these opportunities more widely available, a decision has been made to make this source of inspiration even rarer.
The chairman of the CNCI, Aongus O hAonghusa, was quoted on Wednesday saying: “It’s not about money – it’s about joined-up thinking.” Indeed!” But when will that start? - Yours etc.
GAVIN O’SULLIVAN, Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan
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IRISH TIMES Thursday, 12th April 2007
Letters to the Editor
Decision to merge national youth orchestras
Madam, - The visionary board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland has captured the spirit of the nation. Ireland’s two national youth orchestras must be amalgamated for the same reason that we must doggedly plough a motorway through Tara. Times are hard! Recruitment difficulties and rising costs must be tackled by strategic reviews and downsizing.
May I modestly propose to the board that it should spurn its critics and steel itself to still greater things? Why not now lay off all current players, register the newly-merged orchestra offshore, outsource the musicians, and so “enrich further the nation’s cultural life” by reducing overheads and increasing competitiveness?
Be steadfast, members of the NYOI board: the Celtic Tiger cubs in your charge will surely be glad to play the stock exchange rather than perform Stockhausen! - Yours etc.
Dr PETER CROOKS, Castleforbes Square, Dublin 1
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IRISH TIMES Thursday, 12th April 2007
Letters to the Editor
Decision to merge national youth orchestras
Madam, - As a parent of two children who have had the privilege of performing with the National Youth Orchestras, I can attest to the richness of their experiences: the skills acquired, the repertoire explored, the challenges met, the friendships forged. That the Board of the NYOI should now seek to dilute what has taken many years to shape and develop – two outstanding orchestras which, in my opinion, have attained and maintained an especially high standard in recent years – is simply baffling.
In its announcement on the NYOI website, the board states that the NYOI needs “to change and evolve with the times”. According to the dictionary, “to evolve” means “to bring to fuller development”. How a decision based on cuts, reductions and disenfranchisement can be seen as evolutionary is, again, baffling.
Although the impact of this decision will be most keenly felt by those talented players who will remain outside the quota of places available in the reconstituted orchestra, many more musicians will be affected by the board’s decision. I refer to the hundreds of players who belong to local community youth orchestras, small ensembles that have taken inspiration from the work of the NYOI and have developed in tandem with its orchestras.
The standard achieved by the National Youth Orchestras has served as a measure of excellence for these performing groups, with players aspiring to one day play in these premier ensembles.
I cannot see who will gain by this decision. I urge the board to reconsider, to build on what it has taken so many people many years to create, rather than destroy it. - Yours etc.
GRAINNE GORMLEY, Mountpleasant Square, Dublin 6
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IRISH TIMES Wednesday, 11th April 2007
Letters to the Editor
Merging of youth orchestras
Madam, - I share the concerns of my former colleague Donagh Collins (April 6th) regarding the future of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland. Since 1980, there have been two constituent orchestras of the NYOI, in two age brackets. I was startled to read that the board had decided to merge these two orchestras while cutting the upper age limit from 24 to 21. It is difficult to credit that recruiting enough players of the requisite standard has become a major challenge. Since the 1980s, there has been a staggering increase in the numbers of young people in Ireland learning orchestral instruments. This is reflected in the 74 member-orchestras of the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras.
The board's decision is the more worrying given that there is currently no general manager of the NYOI. In February 2006 I informed the board that I intended to retire as general manager last August, after 11 seasons of voluntary work. I have taken no part in the process of selecting a successor. After 14 months, no one has been appointed to take up the now salaried position of chief executive.
The NYOI has many friends. In Ireland and across Europe goodwill towards it abounds. It has many stakeholders - not just players, past and present, but also funding organisations, tutors, employees, course staff, people working in music education, and a concerned public. All deserve a proper explanation of what has happened to delay an appointment so long and why the decision to merge the orchestras has been taken. Equally, they are entitled to question the future artistic policy as announced.
Let's hope that the Arts Council may now roll up its sleeves, assess the past year and the current position, and help the board in to find alternative policies that will prove constructive for the short and long term. - Yours, etc,
JOANNA CROOKS
(General Manager, NYOI 1996 to 2006)
Ailesbury Grove, Dublin 16.
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Madam, - Like Donagh Collins, I believe the decision to merge two youth orchestras into one cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be seen as "advancing the potential of the NYOI" or "enhancing greatly the lives of young people", as claimed in the board's statement. The reality is that approximately a hundred fewer young musicians will benefit from the experience of playing large-scale symphonic repertoire. For most of the members of the NYSOI, this is their only opportunity to play such music.
It is clear from the announcement that visiting conductors will be used only on an occasional basis. The wonderful standards achieved by the NYSOI have been due to the excellence of the conductors engaged. I have seen at first hand over many years the astonishing effect which working with conductors such as Alexander Anissimov, Eri Klas, the late Albert Rosen and many others has had on our young people. To take away this biannual contact with first-rate international artists is than educational and cultural vandalism.
The point that the NYOI has experienced recent difficulties recruiting players is misleading. Player numbers and standards fluctuate; this is normal. The recent NYSOI course may have had a slightly smaller than usual string section, but the performance at the Helix in January this year was outstanding, and a testament to the determination of the players and staff of the orchestra.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had a long and happy association with all the NYOI orchestras, as a member in the early 1980s, as a tutor for more than 10 years, as soloist on the occasion of the orchestra's 21st birthday, and later on a major European tour. One of the high points of my entire professional career remains the NYOI Ring cycle in 2002 - an immense challenge to all involved, and one which gave the orchestra renewed international recognition. It seems alarmingly clear to me today that the vision and imagination which made these wonderful experiences possible has clearly departed from the minds of those charged with the future of this institution. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL D'ARCY,
Senior Lecturer in Violin, Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin.
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Madam, - I am a member of the National Youth Symphony Orchestra and I was appalled to hear that the junior and senior orchestras were to be amalgamated into one orchestra for members between 14 and 21 years. This is a wrong decision in so many ways: it will limit our repertoire, our experience and our learning (no offence to the younger musicians) and many members, including some of my friends, will have to leave because of the new age limit.
Everybody I have spoken to is extremely disappointed and downhearted by this decision. We all believe that it bad for the development of music in Ireland.
Personally, I am seriously considering pulling out, even though I would hate to do so. - Yours, etc,
AISLING McCARTHY,
Lima Lawn, Cork.
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IRISH TIMES Tuesday, 10th April 2007
Letters to the Editor
Merging of youth orchestras
Madam, - I echo the views expressed by Donagh Collins (April 6th), who has resigned as a director of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland in protest at the merging of its two constituent orchestras into a single unit.
I have been associated with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland for 13 years. Like Mr Collins I was a member of the orchestra, staff member and tutor of the percussion section in the junior orchestra.
I feel that the board’s decision is wrong and will leave Ireland without an orchestra to prepare young musicians for a profession in music.
The NYOI senior orchestra has been a stepping stone for many of Ireland’s finest musicians, some of whom hold top positions in major orchestras. The previous management of the NYOI has taken both orchestras to a standard that matches any other youth orchestra in Europe and this should continue into the future.
I hope this decision can be reversed and that young musicians of the future can have the same experience that I had during my time with the National Youth Orchestra. Yours etc.
DIARMAID FRAIN
The Drive, Celbridge, Co Kildare.
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IRISH TIMES Good Friday, 6th April 2007
Letters to the Editor
Merging of youth orchestras
Madam, - After a 21-year association with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland as a cellist, member of staff, orchestra manager and Director, it is with a heavy heart that I have today resigned as director of NYOI. On Wednesday, the Board announced that the two constituent orchestras (National Youth Orchestra for musicians aged 12-18 and National Youth Symphony Orchestra, for musicians aged 18-24) will be amalgamated into one orchestra, composed of musicians between the ages of 14 and 21 (see www.nyoi.ie).
On every level – artistic, financial, educational – I disagree with this decision. Joanna Crooks, general manager on a voluntary basis for 11 seasons, retired last August, having worked tirelessly, nurturing both orchestras, recruiting young musicians from all 32 counties, and arranging concerts all over the world from the Berlin Konzerthaus to a school hall on the Aran Islands, from a performance with Maxim Vengerov in Limerick to Wagner’s Ring Cycle in Ireland and the UK.
The board of the National Youth Orchestra has been engaged in a protracted recruitment process to appoint a new general manager since February 2006. The timing of this decision when the process is still incomplete is astonishing. The abolition of one orchestra will deny 100 young Irish musicians the chance to rehearse and perform some of the great works of the classical repertoire, will restrict the artistic possibilities, and will severely limit opportunities to invite conductors and soloists of international repute to work in Ireland.
One has only to think about wonderful performances under the batons of Hugh Maguire, Albert Rosen, En Shao, Alexander Anissimov, Atso Almila and ask: how can this decision possibly "enrich further the nation’s cultural life"? as the announcement claims. Yours etc.
DONAGH COLLINS
Albion Road, London N16
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