Copenhagen Music Ensembles…
In March, Con Brio’s Director Tom Northey travelled to Copenhagen to meet with three chamber music ensembles. While each organisation had its own distinct identity and creative plans, a number of common themes emerged:
1. Core capacity and the challenge of project funding:
While Denmark has a strong arts infrastructure of large, reguarly funded companies, smaller organisations have to apply annually for programmes of work. The challenge as ever is planning and developing programmes over such a short time period.
2. Leadership, and ‘agenda setting’: State or Private Foundations?
Several of the organisations described a shifting balance between state and private funders in terms of arts and social policy. Many larger private funders are now highly engaged in policy research, an area which in the past may have been driven by the regional or national government. Arts organisations may have to build a broader network of contacts and engage in deeper conversations with private funders.
3. Capacity for generating new outreach and education work.
There was real interest amongst all the companies in exploring new relationships with communities and schools, and exploring the potential of engagement in music making. However there is currently gap in capacity to undertake the R&D work to develop these ideas, and explore new funding streams.
Con Brio hopes to build on some of these relationships, working together to share learning and explore possible solutions to challenges which are common to arts organisations on both sides of the North Sea.