Summer is the right time for a look at the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly in the Canadian arts.
First the good: Last week, during the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, a band of young musicians rehearsed in the theatre of Library and Archives Canada, as part of the TD Jazz Youth Summit. The 17 players, high school, university and college students, were brought together from across the country. Later, they would present two concerts on the festival’s main stage.
Three seasoned pros, all Canadians, worked with them as they struggled to learn a difficult composition, Transit, by Darcy James Argue. The band’s musical director, Jim Lewis, a Toronto trumpeter, composer and teacher, welcomed Argue, who is originally from Vancouver but now leads a New York-based band. One of his trumpet players, Ingrid Jensen, who is also originally from British Columbia, also pitched in, as well as playing fiery trumpet solos.
The guidance was in part technical but also general – it was about breathing, it was about not playing timidly, it was about projecting authority and it was enjoyed by both sides. “I’m very appreciative of you guys playing my music,” Argue told them.
By the end of the 90-minute rehearsal, the piece was sounding almost as professional as it would sound later that night, when Argue’s own band, the Secret Society, played it in Confederation Park.
Here was the Canadian arts scene at its best, the essential components being talented young performers, dedicated mentors and generous funders. In varying degrees it can be found across the spectrum of the arts in this country. In music, theatre, dance and writing, more and more young Canadians are emerging as impressive performers, ready to take their place in the professional ranks.
Here’s the bad: Once they get to the professional ranks, they find they can’t make a living. The same day the young jazz musicians were rehearsing in Ottawa, the SummerWorks Theatre Festival in Toronto was facing a significant loss of government grants. The federal Heritage Department’s rejection letter to SummerWorks was particularly ominous. It said it was looking for “tangible results, which contribute to program objectives; provide the best possible value for money; and meet the needs of Canadians.”
This is great. Government is quantifying art, looking at plays and music and paintings to see if they produce tangible results that contribute to program objectives. I think that’s one play you don’t want to see.
Meanwhile, the federal finance minister, Jim Flaherty, was warning cultural institutions not to count on government grants. And of course they shouldn’t, but anybody who thinks the arts in this country can operate without help from government and corporate donors doesn’t know much about how the arts work, not only here but all over the world.
The unfortunate thing, here and all over the world, is that the people buying tickets, CDs, books and paintings, do not provide enough revenue to keep the culture going. That’s the ugly part. The ugly part is us. Those of us who have money to spare, spend thousands on elaborate electronics and home theatre systems and, relatively speaking, virtually nothing on going out to see live music and theatre.
Festival season may be an exception. People seem capable of venturing out of the house if someone is putting on a festival nearby. Tickets and passes are relatively cheap, helped by the grants that cultural institutions are told not to count on any more. But once the summer is over, we go back inside, turn on the home entertainment system, download music for free and leave the artists to fend for themselves.
As anyone who has seen Canadian young people perform knows, we are doing a terrific job of training young artists. But we are doing a terrible job of supporting them. Some of that is government’s fault, but a lot of it is ours.