Sour note: Brexit forces orchestra move from Britain to Belgium
It’s a resonant moment of European cultural harmony: a Swedish soprano and a pan-European orchestra are rehearsing a Bach cantata in a medieval English church.
With Britain about to leave the European Union, it’s also a poignant one.
The ensemble rehearsing in a York church is the European Union Baroque Orchestra, founded 32 years ago to use classical music as a melodic cultural ambassador for the European Union. Since then it has been based in the countryside near Oxford, each year assembling some 20 young musicians from across the continent and sending them on international tour. Now, because of Brexit, it has to leave its English home.
Next year the orchestra will move its office and legal base to Antwerp, Belgium, so that it will still be in the European Union once Britain quits the bloc in 2019.
“When the Brexit vote happened last year it was more a question of when, rather than if,” said the orchestra’s British director-general, Paul James. “Because it clearly made no sense to run a European Union entity from outside of the EU.”
James, who has led the orchestra since it began in 1985, said Britain’s vote in June to leave the 28-nation European Union hit him “like being winded in the stomach. I’ve really felt physically ill, depressed.”
A similar malaise is felt in rehearsal rooms, concert halls and artists’ studios across Britain as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to begin the UK’s two-year countdown to EU exit this week.
No one is sure what will happen once Britain leaves the bloc, which has brought nearborderless conditions for artists to travel and work. Will Europeans need visas to perform in Britain, and vice versa? Will musical instruments require travel papers to cross the English Channel?
Intertwined rules
“In our world most of the musicians are freelance, they rely on the possibility of free movement, both of their performances and of their friends and collaborators,” James said. “The cross-border collaboration is massive in our business, and this will severely restrict that.
“The top stars will always be able to move around. They have secretaries and assistants who can fill in forms for them for work permits and visas and so on. But I think for the average jobbing musician who will be a freelance, it’s going to be very difficult for them to get work.”
Brexit will involve unpicking and re-stitching thousands of intertwined rules and regulations covering everything from fishing to financial services.
The arts and cultural sector is keenly aware that it is unlikely to be at the top of the negotiations list, despite its importance to the British economy. The UK government says the creative industries — a category that includes music, movies, games, publishing and TV — are worth £84 billion (Dh386 billion or $105 billion) a year to the economy.