FIM

Report by John Smith, FIM President. Last September I was hon­oured to accept an invi­ta­tion to address the annu­al sum­mit of the AAPRO, in Moscow. The sum­mit was host­ed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra “Russian Philharmonic” and I am grate­ful to the orchestra’s CEO Mrs Gayane Shiladzhyan and the organ­is­ing com­mit­tee led by its Chair Mrs Guo Shan from the China Symphony Development Foundation, for their kind hos­pi­tal­i­ty. The sum­mit was attend­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of orches­tra man­age­ments from across the Asia Pacific region includ­ing China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and of course Russia. Also an inter­est­ing video, sent by the Symphony Orchestra of India, was shown

A num­ber of European guests were also present includ­ing my good friend and col­league Gerald Mertens from DOV who took part in a pan­el ses­sion devot­ed to orches­tra asso­ci­a­tions as lob­by­ing tools. The rather impos­ing title that I was giv­en for my ses­sion was “The Philadelphia Story” so I out­lined the recent prob­lems expe­ri­enced by that orches­tra and by oth­er orches­tras in North and South America and across Europe, empha­sis­ing the cri­sis in fund­ing that is cur­rent­ly being faced. Sessions also took place on the sit­u­a­tion in Russia; the per­cep­tion of clas­si­cal music in dif­fer­ent parts of the world; pro­gram­ming; orches­tra man­age­ment; and artists’ man­agers and orchestras.

We were treat­ed to two mag­nif­i­cent con­certs, the first giv­en by the host orches­tra the Moscow Symphony Orchestra “Russian Philharmonic” in the new Svetlanov Hall in the House of Music. The sec­ond took place in the famous Tchaikovsky Hall and was giv­en by the Russian National Orchestra. My over­all impres­sion was that the orches­tras of the Asia-​Pacific region are gen­er­al­ly in good shape. I detect­ed an air of opti­mism at the sum­mit that I sel­dom expe­ri­ence at sim­i­lar events in Europe and I tru­ly hope that this sec­tor con­tin­ues to grow and devel­op in that part of the world.