Culture takes back seat, conductor says
RINKS TRUMP STRINGS IN LETHBRIDGE
As conductor, Glenn Klassen raised his baton and his musicians sounded the opening notes of Handel’s Messiah at a recent concert. There wasn’t an empty seat in any of the pews at the local church the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra calls home.
While the sellout performance to a crowd of 750 people ought to have filled his heart with joy, Klassen said he felt a tinge of sadness instead that this fast-growing city lacks a performing arts centre with the acoustics and capacity to accommodate his ensemble.
“You know you’ve struck a chord when you gaze out at that sea of faces,” said Klassen. “But it’s also a reminder of an unmet need in this community.”
Despite a population that has grown nearly 12 per cent during the last five years and is fast approaching 100,000 people, Lethbridge makes do with a 500-seat auditorium that was built over a half century ago when the city was about a third of its current size.
Even with the symphony’s departure three years ago to bigger and better-sounding quarters, the Genevieve E. Yates Memorial Centre has nary a dark night.
A wide range of theatre and musical groups from the community and visiting artists from across the country use the facility more than 260 times a year.
A report last year by an outside consultant proposed building a 950-seat theatre and adjoining recital space, but Lethbridge’s mayor said there is no guarantee city council will approve the estimated $42-million cost when it debates its 10-year capital plan this coming spring.
“The Yates is showing its age, so some decisions will have to be made fairly quickly, but there are all sorts options from a new facility to a refurbishment,” Rajko Dodic said.
“Like everyone else on council, I will look at the pot of money that’s available and the need out there for whatever projects may be proposed and unfortunately there will be winners and losers.”
Klassen said his analysis of Lethbridge’s capital spending over the last four decades shows culture has got short shrift.
By his calculation a total of $22 million has been allocated for museums, art galleries and the performing arts, while sports and recreation have received over $70 million each.
“The numbers say we don’t have equality,” Klassen said.
“I think a lot of people don’t understand what the arts add to the quality of life and how they can attract people to a community.”
With the help of infrastructure funding from the provincial and federal governments, Lethbridge has just built a $14.5-million community arts centre that will open this spring.
But it’s also used those monies to help fund $35 million in renovations to the Enmax Centre, whose primary tenant is the local junior hockey franchise, and earmarked another $26 million to build a twin-ice arena and curling rink in the fast-growing and underserved sector west of the Oldman River.
Keith Hitchcock, general manager of the city’s minor hockey association, said the new rinks will mean that fewer of his 1,100 players have to make the trek to nearby towns for practices and games.
“You have hockey people and arts people and it’s always a battle for your sport or your group,” Hitchcock said,
“We got the money we did because we convinced the city the rinks were needed and they would be fully utilized.”
The consultant’s study estimated the proposed performing arts centre would require an annual subsidy of $700,000 from the city, but Mike Williams, a retired military officer and civic watchdog who moved to Lethbridge eight years ago, said he is worried the cost to taxpayers could be higher.
“There’s been no real consensus about what is an acceptable amount for the public to be paying to foot the bill for a facility that is largely for a small elite,” Williams said.
Medicine Hat, despite its smaller size, is attracting travelling artists such as Nelly Furtado, the Cowboy Junkies and John Kimura Parker to its new, 700-seat theatre in the coming months. None of those artists is coming to Lethbridge.
Ron Sakamoto, Canada’s top country music promoter, said some touring acts take a miss on his hometown because it lacks a mid-sized concert hall or because the Yates is already booked.
While the renovated Enmax Centre can be configured as a concert bowl that seats approximately 2,200 and is ideal for amplified shows, Sakamoto said the sound is never perfect.
“You can curl on a hockey rink, but the quality of play is not going to be nearly as good.” he said. “Music’s no different.”
Despite the need for a new performing arts centre, a history compiled by the Lethbridge’s Allied Arts Council suggests the city’s cultural community will need to fight long and hard and find local donors with deep pockets if they hope to get the goahead.
The Yates auditorium cost $546,000 when it was constructed in 1965, and more than half the money came from the estate of the building’s namesake, who had died nearly a decade earlier.
While initial plans had called for a theatre that could seat as many as 1,200 people, the project was downsized so the city would also have enough money to construct an outdoor pool.
City council finally approved the project after years of controversy during which local citizens rejected the idea by a three-to-one margin in a plebiscite.
“Decisions pertaining to cultural activities in this city change rapidly,” Mary Louise Perkins, then secretary of the arts council, lamented at the time.
“One week it seemed a cultural centre with auditorium was on the way, another week proved the contrary.”