FIM

The fight against the Südwestrundfunk’s plans to merge the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-​Baden und Freiburg (SO) with the Radio-​Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR (RSO) did not abate fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of the com­posers’ and con­duc­tors’ open let­ters last year — rather, the protest has inten­si­fied and spread.

The organ­i­sa­tion “Friends and Supporters of the SWR-​SO” has made an appeal to Winfried Kretschmann, the min­is­ter pres­i­dent of Baden-​Württemberg, ask­ing him to take active steps towards pre­serv­ing the exis­tence of the SO, and this appeal has already been signed by more than 20.000 cit­i­zens of the German ‘Bundesland’. Politicians are also start­ing to final­ly take notice of this impor­tant prob­lem: last week­end, a non-​partisan dec­la­ra­tion against the SWR merg­er was made pub­lic, signed by 40 mem­bers of the fed­er­al (Bundestag) as well as the provin­cial par­lia­ments (baden-​württembergischer Landtag).

But the fight is not con­fined to Germany’s bor­ders: there have been numer­ous inter­na­tion­al protests against the SWR’s merg­er plans. The com­pos­er Franck Bedrossian has start­ed a peti­tion, aimed at all cul­tur­al­ly engaged peo­ple world­wide, demand­ing that the SWR take back its merg­er deci­sion. Unfortunately, this peti­tion has not yet gar­nered the atten­tion it deserves. This is why I am urg­ing you: please, if you have not yet done so, sign the inter­na­tion­al peti­tion to save the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-​Baden und Freiburg, and for­ward this email or copy the fol­low­ing link and send it to your col­leagues, friends, and acquain­tances. This is a mat­ter of great urgency and impor­tance. Every sig­na­ture counts!