Musicians gathered in Edinburgh on Sunday to keep up the pressure on the BBC who plan to make cuts to their programming.
The BBC announced that they will cut Jazz Nights, Classics Unwrapped and Pipeline, leading to an outcry from Scottish musicians from a variety of genres who are extremely concerned about the effect of these cuts on the BBC output. The artists say that the continuing success of the music industry – at the centre of cultural life here at home and in representing Scotland on the global stage – “depends entirely on the infrastructure to support and champion emerging artists”. They regard scrapping these programmes as a move against such support.
Honza Kourimsky is a jazz musician who convened the protest in Edinburgh. He said: “I feel that there is a lot of momentum gathering in Scotland in classical music, folk music and jazz. A lot of the musicians are cutting their way through. Right at this moment cuts to BBC programmes which give space to people to play their music to promote Scotland further. At this moment when there’s most momentum it is being cut under their feet.
“Success would be if a platform is maintained for people to play their music. Maybe it will be somewhere else but it is important that people realise it is important to give musicians space for their music especially at a time when they are working hard to promote it.”
Saxophonist, Tommy Smith, OBE, told The Edinburgh Reporter that the activism is now changing direction. He said: “We are now at the stage where we are becoming political. Angus Robertson, Cabinet Secretary received our open letter and he has responded to it in Parliament at Committee Level. I have also taken this to the House Commons through Alison Thewliss who is Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Jazz Appreciation Society. This means all parliamentary groups are now getting involved and will assist me in our meeting at the BBC next week. We are on a different tack now.”
Paul Paterson leads the Paul Paterson Trio, which specialises in 1930s jazz music with inspiration from Django Reinhardt, and he is one of the country’s leading gypsy jazz guitarists. He said: “It would be an absolute disaster if the BBC cut their programming. It is one of the few things that we have in this country that represents not only world jazz music but also from a Scottish angle. It is invaluable.”
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