Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members, for the opportunity to come and speak today.
I'll be up front and say I'll take a slightly different position from my colleague next to me on what has been going on.
Of the briefs that I believe have been presented to you so far, I think there has been a lot of very, very good information put forward, very well thought out. The bottom line for me is that I think there should be a rethinking of the nature of the CBC orchestra as it's constituted, and I believe there should be a serious look at what the proposed changes are in the programming.
Just so you know a little bit about me and where I come from, I'm a practising musician, a clarinet and saxophone player. I'm currently chair of the sector council for culture, the Cultural Human Resources Council, and have been for the last six years. I'm a past chair of the New Brunswick Arts Board, the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra, and am currently on the board of the New Brunswick music industry association; artistic director of the New Brunswick Summer Music Festival; and director of music at the University of New Brunswick, the latter being my actual day job.
I also bring maybe a perspective that is not from either central Canada or western Canada, which seems to be the focus of many of the comments you have had so far.
As just a little bit about what I believe the history of the CBC has been for this country, it really has been a leader in reflecting back to Canadians who it is, right from early broadcasts in 1927 over radio that went coast to coast, predecessor of what became the CBC later on. It has also been a leader in presenting music to the rest of the world through its recordings, through its international broadcasts, and through its flagship organizations.
In important times of Canadian unity, it has been there, through the high rate of commissioning during Expo 67, providing an immense amount of material that we still listen to and some people still hum, in terms of the song associated with that particular event.
As a little bit about radio orchestras themselves, radio orchestras have a long history. They began in the early twentieth century, and in most countries they belonged to—Bavaria in Germany, for instance, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, or the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Japan—they have been flagships of their particular countries. When you turn on their radio stations and listen to them and also buy their records in the record store, you can be sure that you're getting some of the best that's coming from that country. They focus, as ours should do, on what is the nature of the music in that country, which should reflect obviously orchestral music at its highest level, Canadian performers at the highest level, and introducing Canadian performers who are up and coming stars, many of whom have been mentioned in previous briefs as well.
This CBC orchestra we have now has many virtues that have already been mentioned, and I agree with them. I do believe, though, that the orchestra needs to be looked at and needs to be repositioned to reflect some of the historical nature of what are, again, many orchestras around the world that still exist attached to radio stations.
Our music scene is changing rapidly. I just found out, actually, today that two days ago one of the major distributors of music in the world is stopping distribution, and it's going to affect greatly what's going on in terms of distribution in this country as well. The idea of hard copy is disappearing. It will probably still exist in some form, but the whole industry is reeling from the speed of what's going on in terms of technology.
I found it kind of strange, while I was reading over some of the briefs that were presented and the comments from the CBC people, that they wanted to make more space on radio. When I poll my university students as to how they're consuming music, they're not going to the radio any more. So if you want to reach young people, that's not the place to reach them.
Who is listening to the radio? It is the people who have developed an interest in classical music and other forms, such as jazz or experimental music as well. That's the traditional place they're going to listen. Right now, they're being alienated from that position.
I think we need to also look at the position that has been mentioned several times about young people. I came today, to this particular meeting, from a music camp I'm teaching at, 200 kilometres north of Toronto. We have 400 kids from inner-city downtown Toronto, playing violins, cellos, flutes, drums, you name it, and they're enjoying it. Music festivals around this country based on western classical music are in very good shape.
At our music festival in Fredericton, where I live, our burgeoning population of Korean immigrants there are making a huge difference and a huge contribution. They are hungry for that.
So to collar classical music as “old white man's music” is really not the picture. It is not the complete picture. It is obviously, as my colleague mentioned, not all that we should be experiencing on CBC Radio 2, but I believe there's a place for it and there should be a strong place for it.
Thank you very much.