Hi Foxy and Nathan,

Thanks for much more detailed information on this obscure bit of OS news. No one was "sacked" as all musicians worked on a freelance contractual capacity on a seasonal basis. The fact those not reengaged for the 2022 season were all white, is not surprising as the 2019 (last performing season of ETO) orchestra members were all white, all 50 members. According to ETO they will engage 50 musicians based on talent rather than years of performing with the orchestra. For this purpose auditions were held over the summer months. Those who have performed in the past season and are no longer required have been sent thankyou letters, they were all aged between 40 and 66. At no time was there an obligation for the musician to be retained by the company for future seasons. This new arraignment puts the orchestra members on the same merit footing as singers and technical staff who are engaged on a seasonal bases.

The ETO is partly funded through The Arts Council of England, other funds are privately donated.

Looks like that old fart whose been beating his drum for all those years, on a good earner, has been left out in the cold.

Is Mise,

Yes it could very well spread here, which is why I called it a "warning". It is not an 'obscure' piece of news as some unenlightened people think. What happens in the rest of the West usually gets to us eventually. The unenlightened are the sort of people who think not having your contact renewed isn't the same as getting the sack.

Yes it could very well spread here,
ttbn,
Could spread here ? Here is where this started, that Opera outfit most likely got the idea from Australia's antics !

Paul 1405,

You are going against the rational argument put by the union on this issue. Regardless of the exact employment arrangements involving the employees, this doesn't justify the activity.

I take the position you are splitting hairs re employment obligations also. As the union put it:

"If ETO are really serious about recruiting a more diverse workforce, then their focus should be on creating an orchestra where musicians are valued, respected and encouraged to fully participate. Sacking half the workforce under the guise of ‘improving diversity’ is insincere and bad practice."

I agree and there is no real case for such practices. What the ETO has done shows no respect to those who have put in a lot of time, work and effort over many years and will do nothing more but create divsion, which is a huge problem worldwide.

Hi Nathan,

A couple of points, from what I have read the ETO handled the whole matter rather badly. I suspect having a new musical director joining there may have been some desire to cull some of the dead wood from the orchestra, which appeared to be an old white boys club, with some white women included. In fact it seems about 3/4 of the existing players were retained, they being all white. The orchestra had a pool of 50, not sure how the playing operated, but I assume not all were engaged at each performance. To use the pretext of "diversity" as a guise to remove those no longer wanted was not the right way to go about it, if that's what they done, trying to kill two birds with the one stone. I assume the 14 no longer required were give the opportunity to audition over the summer along with lots of others. In this way the selection was done on musical talent rather than some quota system based on diversity. As for the union I would expect them to advocate for their members employment.

This is typical of the woke garbage infesting much of the arts.

If they want to be fair all auditions should be blind, with the selection panel in another room with no vision of those playing. With such a system they can chose the best musicians, with out any racist complaints being possible.

This of course would not suit the woke who want to make everything racist against white races.