The National Concert Hall Fiasco

ON 1ST JUNE Mr. Pearse Wyse, T.D., Minister for State at the Department of Finance, was pleased. Pleased to annnounce that Messrs. Cramptons would shortly be moving into the Great Hall of UCD in Earlsfort Terrace to convert it into a Concert Hall. Presumably Crampptons were pleased, too, since the conntract is reputedly for over a million pounds, and particularly because they built the original facade of Earlsfort Terrace in 1914. Nice to be back.

The lobby for a Dublin concert hall has been active in one way or annother since the end of the last century, and most noticeably since the incepption and then the shelving of the Kennedy Hall. Dublin remains the only European capital city without a concert hall. Yet Earlsfort Terrace comes in spite of, rather than because of, the lob by, which grudgingly admits that it isn't the Kennedy Hall but it will do. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but does Dublin deserve a silk purse?

Pearse Wyse claims that it will be "second to none" which is utterly unntrue. It could hardly be superior to a successfully designed purpose-built hall, but it will be the best hall in the counntry, which is perhaps what he meant, and it is probably good enough. It is certainly good value for money. When UCD graciously decided to jettison its Great Hall, Richie Ryan and the Coaliition Government seized on the opporrtunity of killing the Kennedy Hall stone dead and providing the RTE Symphony Orchestra with a permanent home after its years in the wilderness of the Phoenix, O'Connell and St. Francis Xavier Halls and its migrations to the Gaiety Theatre.

In the "new" hall, we will be able to hear the orchestra in the same room as ourselves, rather than behind a proscennium arch. The hall will be acoustically "treated" by Dr. V. L. Jordan of Copennhagen, one of the world's top acousticcians. The full orchestral colour should therefore be more accessible in the open acoustic (as it has always been in the similarly shaped Cork City Hall). Whetther the socialites from the Gaiety Theatre will notice the difference is debatable, but the more discriminating audience from the St. Francis Xavier Hall should be 'pleased'.

There will be only 1300 seats, commpared to 1200 in the Gaiety Theatre, 700 in the St. Francis Xavier Hall, and at the RDS 1200 in the Members' Hall, approximately 4500 in the Main Hall and about 3000 in the Simmonscourt Hall, which has yet to be used for musiical purposes. There is a waiting list for the RTE subscription concerts at the Gaiety, crowds are turned away from the St. Francis Xavier Hall on stifling summer evenings and from celebrity concerts by James Galway, James Last, Grappelli, etc. Elementary market reesearch shows that there is an audience for 'popular' classic music of over 2000 regular attenders. In this sense therefore, Earlsfort Terrace does not improve on existing facilities.

The concert in the RDS Main Hall by the Czech Philharmonic last year was disastrous acoustically, although over 4000 people from all over the country were able to experience it. It is unlikely that a major foreign orchestra would be available more than once a year, so to provide this number of seats for the other 364 days would be unrealistic, but it is still more unrealistic to provide only 1300 seats when this is already too few for present needs, and the Dublin population, and the market for music, is increasing.

So, is Earlsfort Terrace the final ansswer to Dublin's classical music needs? Olive Smith, veteran campaigner for the Concert Hall, accused Richie Ryan, when he announced the scheme in 1974, of "selling the nation's birthright for a mess of pottage", but her dream hall, designed by the late Raymond McGrath, will never be built.

There are still alternatives to the 'State' or 'Public' Concert Hall. The RDS could devise a profit-oriented scheme in the private sector, with its 13,000 members as shareholders in an international exhibition, hotel conferrence and cultural complex. It has six auditoria or exhibition spaces of various sizes, all potentially suitable for various musical forms, although unfortunately the two newest, the sales ring and the Simmonscourt Extension, would reequire very heavy financial investment before they were suitable for classical music events. Also, more unfortunately perhaps, the present top-heavy commmittee structure of the RDS precludes such development, and its activities in the music field will probably be limited to its rather prim November-March series of members' recitals and the occaasional major concert.

Another possibility is joint developpment by a state agency and a large priivate concern - again the RDS, or AlB, the Hospitals Sweepstake, Eamonn Andrews Studios: the lost opportunity of the Irish Life Development is an exxample of many other city centre deevelopments coming up soon where a similar scheme would compensate for the loss or lack of existing social ameniities.

But the basic question, in any hyypothetical scheme, as much as in the concrete - or granite - one at Earlssfort Terrace, is: what managerial struccture will it have? Until recently the Board of Works/Department of Finnance/R TE committee on the Earlsfort Terrace scheme had expected to' conntinue to manage the hall, once open. Since this is to be the permanent home of the RTESO, even though it will be available to other promoters regularly four or five nights a week and during the opera seasons, (a total of at least 260 nights per year) RTE should obbviously be strongly represented in the management structure.

But recently the Arts Council has begun to wonder why it should not control the scheme, and has made strong representations to the Governnment that it should do so, as it effecctively does in the case of other national institutions such as the Abbey Theatre. A straight comparison with the Abbey shows that the Directors of what is in fact 'The National Theatre Society Ltd.' represent the company's shareholders  the largest of whom is the Minister for Finance and who therefore nominates a large number of Directors. Assuming that a 'Dublin Concert Hall (1981) Ltd.' was formed to own the hall, the Minister would again be the major shareholdder and it is hard to see what appropriate place in this structure would exist for the Arts Council. But the real control is, of course, that of the purse strings, and the Council has in the past few years taken over this control from the Minister in relation to the Abbey and Gate Theatres, and is now bidding to do so for the administration of the Earlssfort Terrace Hall.

But what has the Arts Council done up to now to provide either the nation or Dublin or any other city or town with a concert hall? What support did the Council give the concert hall lobby (apart from suggesting the Kennedy Hall as a memorial to JFK)? What makes them think that their already inadequuate administration can cope with the enormous complex responsibility of running the Hall? Would it hope or exxpect to have the same control over halls in other parts of the country as it is seeking in the case of Dublin's Hall?

The answer to all these questions is very clear: the Arts Council wishes to impose its structured plan or vision for the arts in all possible areas. The more areas of activity it can claim as its own territory, the greater' its influence and authority will be. So the Council is playing for prestige and power as it is in no many other areas by making itself the main funding agency.

The more important point, however, is that a large question mark hangs over the RTE Symphony Orchestra - which is effectively the National Symphony Orchestra. Why should RTE - and its licence holders - continue to pay for it, promote it, be responsible for its addministration, and make it available for the DUblin, Cork and Wexford operas, practically free of charge, in addition to maintaining its Concert Orchestra? Should this not be a national responsibiility? And, in the absence of a Departtment of Culture, is not the Arts Council the appropriate authority for this purrpose? In effect therefore, the Council, in arguing for control of the Hall and its premier tenant, is arguing in the long term for control of the Orchestra itself.

RTE on the other hand is not emmbarrassed by the fact that it maintains the State's premier orchestra, and has gone to considerable trouble and exxpense to promote its wellbeing, both at home and abroad. The fact remains that after a quarter of a century no better way has been found of running so exxpensive and demanding an institution, or to put it another way, no assurance can be given that the orchestra would be properly administered by any other state or semi-state organisation. In view of these long-term considerations, thereefore, the question of whether or not Dublin should have a "new" l300-seater concert hall seems to be of minor siggnificance.

But allowing for the fact that wheether we want it or not the hall will be open for business in 1981, we have to ask: who will be Master of Ceremonies? Whoever the political master may be, whether or not the Arts Council or annother agency has control of the premises, an impresario manager with enntrepreneurial flair backed up by the security of State-funded administration will have to be engaged. Noel Pearson? Is he too interested in the big money from the 'Superstar' and 'Dreamcoat'?

Anthony Lewis-Crosby, with experience in the London Borough of Greenwich? David Laing, with Belfast and Newwcastle Festivals behind him, the Great Irish Houses and Russborough still with him? Richard Pine, RTE's ambitious concerts manager? Dinah Molloy, Arts Council Music Officer? Michael Emerson, another ex-Belfast Festival Director and now Jimmy Galway's agent? There will be no lack of applicants when the job comes up.

So, having decided on the adminisstrative structure, the Minister will have to establish the limitations within which an impresario could operate. Whether he hands the hall over to the Arts Council, or a joint committee, or a semi-State body - (An Bord Halla?) - will determine the attitude of the selectors in seeking an artistic director or a business-like administrator. Will they look for the dull British qualifications of "Member of the Institute of Municipal Entertainnment" or a Noel Pearson?

The plain fact is that we do not know what we need because we do not know enough about Dublin's cultural needs either now or in the future. Some simple market research would enable us to look at the whole thing in two ways: structurally as regards its relation to central and local government and funcctionally as regards day-to-day or yearyear administration.

Casting pearls before swine was never any good in private enterprise and it won't work for long in Earlsfort Terrace. Nor is there. much of a market among princes for pigswill. If the Hall is to have any meaning it must be a hall for everyyone. You can't please everyone all the time, but you can please most of them most of the time. If RTE gives concerts there twice a week, the other five nights must feature other types of music and entertainment, to suit various audiences. Pearse Wyse is being very careful. The original announcements gave the immpression that the hall would be largely for RTE with some availability to other bodies. Now the picture has changed and the emphasis, while still in RTE's favour, is swinging steadily, or being pushed over by Arts Council pressure, towards "other musical activities".

Sins of omission are perhaps the most serious, and the Arts Council is particularly guilty for having stood idly by, allowing the project to develop without making strong representations on both detail and concept. So too are the Dublin City and County authorities for whose people this is being provided.

The Concert Hall lob by itself did more harm than good, its main achieveement being to keep the matter in the public view. The idea of an expensive hall, built out of public funds, to proovide entertainment for at most five per cent of the population - obviously the Protestants and the Jews - was practicallly calculated to lose the support of the 95%. What was needed was a 'bread and circuses' concept, an international connference centre with municipal recreation facilities, a multi-purpose main auditorrium for wrestling, bingo, concerts, etc., with ancillary performing and exhibiition areas. And instead of the Phoenix Park or Beggars Bush, it should have been planned for the developing 'Moore Street or Liffeyside complexes, a cityycentre significance for ordinary people depending on bus-routes. But the music lobby kept on calling it a Concert Hall and talking about chamber music and other elitist activities, and thus alienated public representatives, opinion, symmpathy and funds.

Earlsfort Terrace is the right hall at the wrong time. Twenty years ago it would have met a pressing need. Allthough it still meets that need, others, more pressing, have arisen in the meanntime. The hall has been conceived by expediency out of recession and when it is delivered by Dr. Crampton and Nurse Wyse it will be an anxious time before we can pronounce it healthy or stillborn. The frightening thing is that by that time quite possibly no one will be 'pleased', or even politely smiling .•