Orchestras Canada

The Canada Council for the Arts has recently published an update on its comprehensive review of Operating Support programs – and it’s vital reading for anyone involved with organizations currently receiving (or hoping for) operating funding from the Canada Council. Indeed, Orchestras Canada’s advocacy committee is studying the document in detail, and we’ll be posting some responses shortly. In the meantime, please read it – and let us know what you think! You can share your thoughts with OC’s executive director, Katherine Carleton, via email at Katherine [at] oc [dot] ca.

You can download the update here.

Federal budget 2013

Between the Government of Canada’s detailed spending estimates (released in early March), an appearance by Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (on March 20, recorded for posterity, here), and the federal budget itself (released on March 21), we’ve been able to assemble a picture of federal spending and policies as they affect the arts and culture sector. Here’s a quick round-up of what we think we know:

The parliamentary allocation to the Canada Council for the Arts remains stable at $181 million. While the needs of the sector remain acute, this constitutes good news in the current environment, and should be celebrated. Thank your MP!

Funding for a major suite of programs at the Department of Canadian Heritage (including Endowment Incentives, Strategic Initiatives, Cultural Spaces, and others) remains stable. In addition, the ceiling for endowment matching over the life of the Endowment Incentives program has been raised from $10 million to $15 million: excellent news for the larger organizations (including our own OSM) that have been participating in the program.

Funding is starting to flow for “The Road to 2017”, a program of support for initiatives intended to celebration Canada’s Sesquicentennial.

The introduction of an enhanced tax credit for first time donors to Canadian charities will be welcome news to registered charities hoping to encourage a culture of philanthropy for a new generation.

As well, Canadian not for profits will be eligible to participate in the Hiring Credit for Small Business, designed to involve employers as providers of essential job and skills training.

The Canadian Arts Coalition is commissioning a detailed analysis of the federal budget and spending estimates, and it will be available in June. We look forward to sharing this analysis with you, then.

The Canada Council for the Arts is calling for nominations for the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts 2013, due April 30. The award recognizes annually the highest level of artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement by a Canadian professional artist in dance, theatre or music – and this year’s $30,000 prize will be awarded in the field of music. For more information, please visit canadacouncil.ca.

The research section of the Canada Council for the Arts provides grant statistics by province and discipline, as well as external links to more arts research.

Link: Canada Council for the Arts

We’ve just posted a presentation that OC executive director Katherine Carleton made to a group of Quebec orchestra managers in Montreal on January 27, kindly hosted by Jean Dupré and the team at Orchestre Métropolitain. In the presentation, she describes OC’s staff, structure, financing, current projects, and pre-occupations – so if you have any questions about any of these things, check it out!

Business for the Arts, in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts and TELUS, brought together public and private sector arts funders in a series of roundtable discussions. The project, which took place between December 2010 and September 2012, travelled to eight Canadian cities (Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Regina, and Halifax) to generate discussion on increasing support for the arts.

The objectives of the Roundtables were to discuss common interests, approaches and perspectives between private and public funders of the arts in order to achieve better understanding, collaboration and improved practices in the support and funding of the arts. The discussions also explored the potential for ongoing discussion, interaction and partnership between private and public funders and supporters of arts and culture in Canada.

To read a digest of round table findings, please visit businessforthearts.org.

January 23 through February 1, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (led by Music Director Bramwell Tovey, and featuring soloist Jon Kimura Parker) will undertake a tour of the U.S. West Coast: a third major tour for the VSO in 5 years, and its first return to the U.S. West Coast since 1978.

The VSO’s Masterworks concerts on January 19 and 21 will be the Vancouver sendoff for the VSO, when it performs the tour program at the Orpheum Theatre. The U.S. West Coast tour begins at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington, and continues with performances in Las Vegas, Nevada; Northridge, Santa Barbara, Aliso Viejo and Palm Desert, California; Scottsdale and Tucson, Arizona. The complete tour program includes Composer-in-Residence Edward Top’s Totem (especially commissioned for the tour), Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.

The 2013 U.S. West Coast tour has been organized by Columbia Artists Management in New York City, and made possible with funding from the Vancouver Foundation, Government of Canada through the Canada Council for the Arts, Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council, the Alan and Gwendoline Pyatt Foundation, Arthur H. Willms & Mary Ann Clark, and Michael Fish. Additional support for the VSO concert in Las Vegas has been received from Paragon Gaming/ Edgewater Casino.

I’m pleased to use this corner of Orchestras Canada’s website to update you on recent exchanges that OC staff, board, and members have had with the Canada Council for the Arts—at our National Meetings in Montreal in May, at the National Arts Service Organizations meetings in Ottawa on October 22, at a pair of meetings with specially-assembled Advisory Committees November 29 and 30, and with representatives from Orchestras Canada’s advocacy committee on December 7.

There has been a lot of discussion—and more is coming. Here is what we have gleaned so far.

The Change Agenda
The Canada Council is in the midst of fundamentally shifting its ways of working. Areas of focus include:
• Reviewing all of the Canada Council’s programs of operating support (including all operating programs in Music).
• Reviewing the Flying Squad program.
• Strengthening Council’s understanding of the “changing landscape for the arts” – the issues and Council’s relationship to them. The issues include (but are not limited to) public engagement, national and international market access, equity, and Canada’s north.
• Implementing significant changes in the ways that Council gets things done, from information systems through on-line grant submission and analysis, to the design of offices and the structure of the organizational chart.

Why is this happening now?
It is Council’s understanding that their base funding from the government of Canada has stabilized and that it is unlikely to grow in the near term. At the same time, the number and type of applications for funding have continued to increase, thanks in part to improved outreach to underserved communities, artists, and art forms. After much study and discussion, the board of Council has concluded that—to preserve Council’s credibility and responsiveness—Council’s programs must evolve to better represent the future shape of arts in the country. Council’s operations must, at the same time, become ever more efficient and cost-effective.

I took careful, though not literal, notes during the NASO meeting, and I’ll paraphrase Bob Sirman in this way: “Incremental change has long been the favoured approach of funders: the old money stays with the old programs, and new money is used to underwrite any new areas of work. This will no longer be the case at Canada Council: everything is on the table as we undertake a fundamental evaluation of our values, our priorities, and how those things are reflected in the way we allocate resources.”

What does it mean for my orchestra?
It’s not completely clear when any changes to the orchestra program might be announced. However, given what we DO know, it’s unlikely that your orchestra will experience changes during the current three-year funding cycle at Council. The public aspect of the operating funding review will unfold over six months or so, launching with consultation sessions with 24 advisors in late November, incorporating national face-to-face meetings in 14 different cities in March and April 2013, and teleconferences and webinars for people in more remote centres.

It’s also important to acquaint yourself with Council’s Fair Notice and Concerned Status policies, outlined on page 7 of the Professional Orchestra Program: Annual Funding Guidelines, here. These policies are not part of the “change agenda”, but given the pressures on Council, there’s every reason to think that they will be more consistently applied to organizations whose work does not meet a competitive standard.

How can I get involved?
We highly recommend that you
1. Participate in the consultation sessions being organized by the Canada Council, either face-to-face or through virtual means;
2. Acquaint yourself with Council’s current thinking. Places to start:
• Council’s current strategic plan
• the funding guidelines linked to above
• Council’s paper on public engagement
• The Director’s message from Canada Council’s 11/12 Annual Report
3. Stay in touch with Orchestras Canada. We’ll be doing our best to share what we know, and we ask you to do the same. We’ll also be working to develop some useful and well-researched messages about the value of Canadian orchestras’ work, and the role that federal investment through the Canada Council plays in taking that work ever further.

This weekend, November 24 and 25, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra will celebrate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 with two new commemorative works: the world premiere of Barbara Croall’s Weezoowad Anang, and Dr. Brent Lee’s General Brock in Detroit, premiered by the WSO last August. The program also includes Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, and will be performed at the WSO’s new home, Windsor’s Capital Theatre.

The War of 1812 has a very particular resonance in Windsor: in the summer of 1812, British Major General Isaac Brock and Shawnee warrior Tecumseh forced the surrender of the village of Detroit, reinvigorating the militia and civil authorities, and inspiring many settlers and First Nation peoples to take up arms in defense of what would become Canada. The concerts, fittingly, feature works that honour both Brock and Tecumseh. Weezoowad Anang, written by Odawa composer Barbara Croall, is based on the oral stories of her ancestors who fought alongside Tecumseh. This new work, commissioned by the WSO with funding support from the Canada Council for the Arts, features a narrator and two actors in addition to native instruments all performing with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra.

These performances will be led by Music Director Candidate Scott Speck, Music Director of the Mobile Symphony, the Western Michigan Symphony Orchestra, the Joffrey Ballet and the author of Classical Music for Dummies, Opera for Dummies and Ballet for Dummies.

Last Tuesday, October 23, the Canadian Arts Coalition presented its third annual Arts Day on Parliament Hill, an opportunity for Canadian artists, arts workers, and arts volunteers to deliver a unified message to Parliamentarians about the economic, social, and cultural value that the arts bring to Canadian communities, and the importance of key federal investments through the Canada Council for the Arts and the Department of Canadian Heritage. Over 130 arts leaders took part in 111 meetings with MPs, ministers, senators and key officials—and early indications are that the day was a success.

Once again this year, Orchestras Canada was well-represented at Arts Day. The OC board was there in force, OC staffers Katherine Carleton and Jennifer Caines played key roles behind the scenes, and the end-of-day reception on the Hill even featured a string quartet made up of members of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra!

While we met with many MPs in Ottawa, we’d value our members’ assistance in sharing the message with MPs at home in the ridings. MPs are scheduled to be at home between November 10-18 for the Remembrance Day break, and this is a crucial time to sit down with them and make the case for the arts. A complete set of Coalition materials (notably, a meeting script, key arts facts, and a leave behind package) are posted on the CAC’s website at canadianartscoalition.com.

If you’d like any help with this, do not hesitate to contact OC Executive Director Katherine Carleton, by email at Katherine [at] oc.ca.

Thank you!

We’ve got two recommendations this week, each of which came our way via the Canada Council for the Arts:

The first is a discussion paper on the ever-green theme of “public engagement in the arts”, recently issued by the Council. It is a lively and discursive (by arts policy standards) effort to grapple with the public funder’s responsibilities around supply and demand in the arts ecosystem, and raises some potent questions around data, evaluation, and change. And if the topic intrigues you, it’s got a wonderful bibliography, too. Highly recommended.

The second recommendation comes from the Fall 2010 issue of Grantmakers in the Arts’ GIA Reader, and it’s devoted to the subject of innovation in arts organizations: why it’s necessary, what it looks like, and how it can be encouraged. (The answer lies not only in the balance sheet, but also in organizational mindsets…read on!) The paper is by Richard Evans, president of EmcArts Inc., and we simply think that everyone should read it.