News

General Meeting London - A stimulating gathering

27 October 2004

The European Festivals Association (EFA) held its General Meeting in London from 1 until 3 October 2004. At the invitation of the BBC Proms and its president Nicholas Kenyon in collaboration with the Dartington International Summer School, Trinity College of Music and British Arts Festivals Association (BAFA), about 110 representatives from more than 60 European and non-European Member festivals from 30 different countries had the opportunity to discuss not only the future of EFA including its legal, structural and personal renewal – the new office in Gent is now settled for the brand new Secretariat - but also some of the key issues around the role of festivals, the challenges and opportunities in the enlargement of the European Union, as well as the exciting possibilities opened up through broadcasting and new technology for festivals. The agenda of the formal part of the General Meeting has been very rich. The Committee not only proposed to the delegates a new procedure on how the existing Swiss EFA association can be transformed into its successor Belgian EFA with its main office in Gent, but also presented a series of elections: new Committee members had to be elected, a new Secretary General, an Honorary Member - Dr Werner Wenger - and six applicant festivals had to be voted. The EFA has the pleasure to welcome four brand new members including the International Music Festivals of 13 Towns Concentus Moravie in Brno, Les Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon, the International Music Festival at Cantonigros in Barcelona and the Festival International de Musica y Danza “Ciudad y Ubeda” in Ubeda. EFA also warmly welcomes the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik as ‘former new’ member. During the General Meeting in London, the delegates had to come to know that Gavin Henderson would no longer be the president of EFA. Due to serious health reasons, Gavin is facing some difficult months for which all delegates wish him all the best. The General Meeting thanked him for all the efforts he has made for EFA and expressed this gratitude with a very extensive applause. The formal part of the General Meeting has been enriched by an attractive conference programme proposed by the BBC Proms, BAFA and the Trinity College. The conference session “New Europe, New Horizons” was dedicated to the many questions, problems and perspectives around the ‘Festival Phenomenon’. Important key note speakers such as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the British composer and director of the St. Magnus Festival (Orkney Islands), and Jude Kelly, artistic director and chief executive of the West Yorkshire Playhouse presented some thought-provoking statements about the role and impact of festival. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies underlined the importance of festivals for the local community and their integrative function as a community building event, especially in a remote place such as an islands with small venues, poor resources and less international reputation. As a composer he underlined the educational impact of music and the involvement of educational projects in festivals. Children and young people can and must be involved in culture and arts festivals. There is no such thing as a split between contemporary music and old music, between school music and the music put on stage by professional orchestras when people are taught to be open-minded. Jude Kelly questioned the substance of arts and festivals in a time when buildings and cultural institutions are growing but ideas and visions are lacking. She presented to opposite examples of the dissemination of art through festivals: Bogota, Colombia organizes every year a festival of cycling which originally began as an initiative to look after the health of humans, but which has turned into a big festival of cycling, an energetic event celebrating humankind. The Venice festival of architecture shows an immense amount of programmes, regeneration programmes, plans for built environments and new concert hall projects. It shows that there is definitely no shortage of buildings, but maybe of ideas and artistic energy. There is an outpouring of festivals, but is there also an outpouring of visions? Concluding, Jude Kelly stressed that there should not be a gap between the institution and the artistic creation and the human expression of art. Following an open discussion, chaired by Nicholas Kenyon, the delegates discussed in different break-out groups the role of the European Union and the question whether festivals should also be considered as educational projects, about the benefits of a separate network for festivals, about the question whether EFA should enhance collaboration and think about membership in more cultural fields beyond the EFA’s traditional mission including cinema, audiovisual media, literature, visual arts, European Capital of Culture, about the questions whether borders create difficulties in terms of collaboration between festivals within the European Union on the one hand and with festivals located in non-European Union countries on the other, or whether EFA has any responsibility in sustaining underdeveloped countries. What is the impact of new technology on Arts Festivals? This has been the central question in the second conference session on Saturday afternoon: Some senior BBC personnel from radio, TV and online including Edward Blakeman (Editor Live Music, Radio 3 and co-ordinator for “Listen Up!”, the national orchestras festival taking place in the UK during this period), Oliver Macfarlane (Editor Music Programmes, Classical Music TV), Kate Finch (Marketing Manager, BBC Symphony Orchestra/BBC Proms), Leigh Aspin (Senior Content Producer, BBC Radio 3 Interactive), Graham Dixon (Editor Development, Radio 3 and European Broadcasting Union Liason for BBC) made short presentations about how festivals can take advantage of the many exciting recent and future developments in broadcasting technology. Apart from this success story of a closed relation between a festival and the various broadcasting opportunities, other guest speakers including Nora Nys and Walter Couvreur of Radio Klara in Brussels reported on their young experience made with the collaboration between Klara, a Brussels Radio station and the Flanders Festival which was called for the first time KLARAFESTIVAL. Radio Klara in collaboration with the Klarafestival has invented a brand new concept of radio programme with 8 hours live radio concerts, conferences, meetings and ‘behind the scenes’ broadcasting. All these presentations have contributed to a very stimulating meeting. At the occasion of a separate working session for collective members of EFA (also open for delegates interested in the topic), Anne Marie Autissier, teacher of European studies at the Paris 8 University, presented a research trajectory on European Festivals set up on the initiative of Dragan Klaic. As one of the aims is to connect different initiatives and networks with the research so as to create an interdisciplinary process of European coverage with several channels of input and broad dissemination of results, the General Meeting has been an ideal platform to introduce the study and discuss the role of national Festival Associations within the research project on the one hand and the benefits they can gain out of it on the other: What do festivals expect from such a broad-planned research study? How can festival operators and the EFA contribute to the success of the study? The European Conference of Promoters of new music (ECPNM) also held its General Meeting in London. Henk Heuvelmans, ECPNM Secretary General, presented the Ars Nova project and the future of these workshops which have been started up in 2001 in Berlin. The aim of the Ars Nova meetings is on the one hand to enhance collaboration projects as well as to exchange experience on the basis of lectures by attractive/well known persons in the field of new music. On the other hand future Ars Nova meetings will be more focused on the market of future co-productions and point out the benefits for festivals. On top of this attractive conference programme, the BBC Proms has put together an impressive cultural and social programme including the opening concert of the BBC Symphony Orchestra autumn season performing Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Quatre Instants’, followed by the impressive Mahler Symphony No 2, 'Resurrection' at the internationally renowned Barbican Centre on Friday night, an exciting contemporary dance evening by Sylvie Guillem and the Balley Boyz at Sadler’s Wells Theatre on Saturday night and an informal voyage at the invitation of Gavin Henderson and Trinity College on the Thames to Greenwich on Sunday. This boat ride, accompanied by young jazz musicians from Tinity College, was followed by concerts from the BBC Young Generation artists at Trinity College and a Baroque recital by Emma Kirkby in the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, introduced by one of the major cultural personalities in Great Britain, Sir Bob Scott. The General Meeting has been closed by an impressive performance of “I Fagiolini”. Its most daring undertaking to date, I Fagiolini present ENO Director John La Bouchardiere's staged version of Monteverdi's sublime Fourth Book of Madrigals, the pinnacle of Italian Renaissance music: Having dinner, chatting with the colleagues without warning, two people began to sing the most beautiful duet. Suddenly they were joined by others around and a tapestry of bittersweet sound begins to unfold. This gathering has been an intensive and fertile meeting with fine performances for the EFA festival family. We all look forward to our next General Meeting which will be held in Brno, Czech Republic, from 7 till 9 October 2005.