Canadian Heritage Committee on May 27th, 2008

[Janet Danielson]

I will take this one on.

The word “genre” is a dangerous word, and the CBC website assured us we'll be drawing from a broader and richer and more diverse spectrum of music: classical, folk, jazz, and so on. Breaking music down into categories of genre is not as clear-cut and fair-minded as it may seem. You can check this in my brief afterwards.

Why have classical as a single genre? Why not have Renaissance polyphony, 19th century art song, French baroque opera, serial music, minimalism, just to name a few? By any measure, those genres are far more sonically distinct than are, say, singer-songwriter, roots, and folk. But all these important classical genres are now jammed into a shrinking classical pigeonhole in CBC programming.

The thing is that the harmonies undergirding all those current forms of popular music derive from classical chord progressions that were painstakingly worked out over centuries by composers. It's a strange kind of thinking that prunes the trunk in order to make more space for branches.

The very categorizing of music by genre is a sleight of hand. Once you have genre taking the place of excellence, beauty, challenge, and meaningfulness, you have the potential of “genrecide”, and this is exactly what has happened. Composers, conductors, instrumental and choral performers, and their distraught audiences have been told to get to the back of the Radio 2 bus, and we're seeing the only Canadian national orchestra terminated.

The online podcasting, streaming, and so on: that is narrowcasting; that's not broadcasting. It's interesting and it's important. I support the CBC going there. But it's not the same as broadcasting. And this funneling of this huge genre of classical music that's been tried and tested over time and that also represents our most exciting explorations into new areas is just unacceptable. It's not broadening; it's narrowing. It's just a very funny use of the language.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

Anyone else?

Mr. Washburn.

[Jon Washburn]

Yes, I'd like to speak to that. Thank you.

I'd like to say that I'm not so trusting of what CBC says in words, but I clearly see what they're doing in action, and they are not broadening the spectrum of music. They're replacing one music with another, and that is very disturbing to me.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

Thank you very much.

We have half a minute left, time perhaps for a comment from Mr. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

The young spend a lot of time surfing on the net. That's really their favorite media, more so than radio or television. Don't you think that to offer classical music on Internet will in some way democratize the classical music and give access to that music to young people? About classification, I must say that it could be done otherwise. If we speak only of offering classical music on Internet, don't you think that it is after all a good thing?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

One quick answer.

[Janet Danielson]

It's certainly a good thing, but not replacing the place that classical music has had. According to the arts and culture survey that I have in front of me, it was the desired balance: 64% of listeners asked for classical music in the same amount as before, or more, in balance.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

Thank you very much.

I'm now going to go to Bill Siksay for five minutes.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you.

I want to thank the witnesses, particularly for that very dignified round of introductions that we had at the very beginning.

Mr. Miles, you mentioned that you thought that the CBC Radio Orchestra was a particularly cost-effective model. I wonder if you might just expand on that, and if anyone else wants to jump in on the cost-effectiveness of the radio orchestra model.

[Colin Miles]

Yes, thank you for that question, Mr. Siksay.

It is cost-effective because it works in a studio, and the studio is a great 21st century creation. It's the way Glenn Gould was actually created as a phenomenon. The CBC radio studio is an amazing place. With just this amazing orchestra, a producer, and a couple of technicians, in about six hours they can produce a broadcast, and in about nine hours they can produce a CD.

It's not market-driven, meaning that the CBC is in the driver's seat, making the decisions about the repertoire, about the performers, and about how things are done.

And because this is a remarkably fine orchestra, contracted on a per-service basis, it's also much more effective than trying to hire an orchestra in another way. And it's not quite the same thing as using remotes.

We submit that of course there should be many, many recordings of remotes and other kinds of recordings of other orchestras across the country to reflect what's happening; but a radio orchestra is a magnificent way for CBC to take the lead and to be proactive in the arts in creating and producing the very finest. And when it has access to people like the winners of the CBC's young composers competition, it can really be a platform for the very finest creations of our youngest talent.

Thank you.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I think someone else wants to get in on this.

[Jeremy Berkman]

Yes. I'm Jeremy Berkman.

I'd just like to speak as a musician to one issue of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio Orchestra, and that is the art of recording, which is actually very different from the art of live performance, and it's something the radio orchestra has become a specialist in.

When you're performing live, you're always thinking forward and you're constantly looking only at the big picture, compared to the art of recording, which often takes a very special focused look at a small phrase and tries to make that phrase absolutely perfect. It's something that, unfortunately, is rarely done in our lives as musicians. And the CBC Radio Orchestra actually spends time doing that. The effect of that on all of our lives, as musicians, is to make us better musicians when we perform live in other situations, as well as creating the legacy that the CBC Radio Orchestra has through its recordings.

I think it's a very specialized skill that the musicians in that orchestra have perfected to a point that it makes it cost-effective to use them, as opposed to people who wouldn't be as well educated in that particular art form.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

Mr. Siksay, you have two more minutes.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Maybe Ms. Danielson wanted to get in on this.

[Janet Danielson]

Yes. I just want to commend a brief that's being sent in by Laurie Townsend, in which she has really crunched the numbers in some detail and again shown that the CBC Radio Orchestra is actually a very cost-effective way of presenting music.

And of course as a composer I know that the chances of a new Canadian work being done would be much better with a radio orchestra than if the CBC just went out into the field to find local orchestras whose mandates were not so much directed towards the performance of new Canadian music and showcasing of Canadian compositional creativity.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I know that radio orchestras are somewhat of an endangered species in North America, the CBC Radio Orchestra being the last, but in other countries I gather they're still alive and well.

Do any of you have experience with other radio orchestras around the world, and can you compare why they're still in existence, maybe why they're flourishing, and why we seem to be having this discussion in Canada?

[George Zukerman]

May I respond to that?

There is a radio orchestra in Tirana, Albania. There is a radio orchestra in Seoul, Korea. Obviously there are many. Every country that claims to have a civilized tradition of music background has had a radio orchestra. Australia had three radio orchestras. Austria has two. Germany has eight currently operating.

Why radio orchestras? It's because they can disseminate music so much more effectively than going on the concert stage. One broadcast is heard by thousands of people, not just in the metropolitan centres and not just by those who buy a ticket, but by those who sit on their farms or sit in their studios or sit at home, or even drive in their car, where they can hear music. One broadcast can reach millions at a time.

I played in the orchestra 55 years ago, and in those days we did 39 broadcasts a year. That was the job of the CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra, and we played an immense number of unknown Canadian composers, people like John Weinzweig, people like Murray Schafer, people like Murray Adaskin, people like Jean Coulthard. They became the great names of Canadian music in the 20th century. They got their opportunity.

Without the CBC Radio Orchestra, who will give those composers an opportunity? Radio orchestras do so much more than can be done with a public orchestra.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Jim Abbott, for five minutes.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

Again, to our witnesses, I deeply appreciate your taking the time to come in to represent not only yourselves, but I'm sure many other people you have spoken to.

I was interested in the discussion about the enraged audience across Canada. I'm inclined to believe there are a number of people who are really quite exercised about this.

One of the difficulties that I must say I have had, though, in taking a look at this is that in section 40 of the Broadcasting Act it says:

The Corporation is ultimately accountable, through the Minister, to Parliament for the conduct of its affairs.

The Broadcasting Act also sets out in sections.... If you want to write these numbers down, I think they're germane. They are subsections 55(4) and 55(5), and subsections 71(1) and 71(2). These detail exactly how the corporation is to be responsible to the minister and ultimately to the government.

But subsection 46(5) is particularly vexatious, as it relates even to these hearings that we're in. It states that the Broadcasting Act guarantees the journalistic, creative, and programming independence of the CBC.

That is not to say that I, and I'm sure all of the people on the committee here, have not been listening to the pleas to instruct and recommend that the CBC restore things.

This is my question--and it is not a trick question, because it is something this committee is going to have to deal with. I would like to know from all six of you if you believe the standing committee should be able to give journalistic, creative, and programming direction to the CBC.

In the affirmative, that would mean this would be the starting point for this committee, in its wisdom, to choose to give direction to the government that we believe the committee, or whatever, should be able to give journalistic, creative, and programming direction to the CBC.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

I don't want to challenge Mr. Abbott's command of math, but there are seven of you there, so I would suggest you perhaps try to limit this to about 30 seconds each.

I'll go to Mr. Laverock first, in Montreal.

[George Laverock]

Sure.

I don't think Mr. Abbott is suggesting that as a member of the committee he should be suggesting to the CBC that only artists from Cranbrook be on the CBC, but I think it would be a wonderful thing for all of us who are outraged by what is happening if this committee were at least to say to the CBC management, through the Minister of Heritage, that they think something is going off the rails here. I don't think that's interfering with programming.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

Now to Vancouver.

[Jon Washburn]

Since this committee has the job of representing or taking care of heritage in Canada, and since I consider this a major heritage problem, the very first thing I would like from the committee is for them to be as outraged as we are.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andy Scott]

Who's next?

[George Zukerman]

It just seems to me that the committee has curatorial responsibility to observe that the CBC has literally abdicated its responsibility to Canadian music, and that is sufficient cause to override whatever reservations you may have about suggesting or recommending changes within their structure.