Brian Rudman: Beg or buy to support near-destitute orchestra

If you believe a civilised city needs its own orchestra, then beg or buy a ticket to tomorrow night's Auckland Philharmonia concert and show your support. For from July 1, the orchestra is officially in the red and anything could happen.

This year, Creative New Zealand chairman Alastair Carruthers addressed Auckland's mayoral forum on the orchestra's funding crisis and said his agency would prop it up until June 30 "on the basis that the philharmonia's structure would be reformed and other funding sources were secured, especially from territorial local authorities".

Forum chairman and Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis said afterwards that the orchestra was an Auckland institution worthy of ratepayer support.

Not as worthy as roads and drains though. Last Friday the orchestra crisis was so important it fell off the bottom of the mayoral forum agenda.

The only council to come to the rescue is, as usual, Auckland City, which seems set to increase its annual grant of $300,000 by a further $200,000.

At the March 4 mayoral forum, the mayors had pledged their long-term commitment to the orchestra, subject to its presenting a sustainable business plan, including a regional outreach programme.

This has been done. The orchestra has also gone through the painful governance restructuring demanded by Creative New Zealand, with players agreeing to share ownership of the orchestra three ways, with contributing local bodies and the Philharmonia Foundation.

The orchestra has proposed a $7 million budget, $4.26 million to come from concert income, $1.6 million from local authority per capita levies, and $1.6 million from Creative New Zealand.

But with the June 30 deadline just over a week away, there's no sign - Auckland excepted - of local bodies coming to the rescue. Manukau City, traditionally the next biggest contributor after Auckland, with $30,000, will make no decision until July at the earliest.

The mayors appear to be pushing for the Motat and Auckland Museum solution, legislation that forces local bodies to levy ratepayers on a per capita basis.

The attraction of this is that it removes the "problem" from the political horse-trading of the annual budget round. The drawback is, that even with the support of the Government, the process will take months or years to pass into law.

So what happens on July 1? General manager Anne Rodda doesn't pull her punches. "It means the Auckland Philharmonia as we know it ceases to exist in the current format. It severely affects the level of service that we can provide.

"Cuts can be made in all sorts of ways. They can be made in people, in the number of concerts and in the quality of concerts. It's just a travesty to even contemplate it."

Orchestra chairman Rosanne Meo says "it's looking tough" but is "feeling hopeful" that the councils will eventually back the Motat approach.

That still leaves the immediate financial crisis to resolve. And that requires Government intervention. What a coup it would have been for Prime Minister Helen Clark if she'd announced a rescue package a couple of Saturdays back, while on the stage of the Auckland Town Hall presenting the prizes in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition.

There she was with the competition's backing band, the Auckland Philharmonia, and its general manager and competition organiser, Ms Rodda.

Helen Clark was full of praise for the way the competition had been accepted into an exclusive international circuit after just five years. On stage were those who deserved much of the credit. Philanthropist Michael Hill for sure, but also Ms Rodda and her band.

It was a moment to reinforce the fact that the dismissive term "regional", which Government agencies delight in using, no longer applies to this orchestra. It's the country's other senior orchestra and should be treated as such.

If Helen Clark can find, as she did in March, $400,000 to send the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra off to the London Proms in August, and then find a further $1.6 million in last month's budget to top up the NZSO's $10 million annual grant, then it's unthinkable that the cupboard could be bare when the Auckland Philharmonia's very existence is in the balance.