A hue and cry went up in Vancouver this March, and rippled across Canada when Mark Steinmetz, head of CBC Radio Music, announced that the Vancouver-based CBC Radio Orchestra is being disbanded.

Why should anyone care about a 35-piece orchestra that gives 6-8 concerts per year? Well, Canadian music-lovers see this action by CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) bureaucrats as but the latest in a series of moves to drastically reduce classical music content on CBC Radio.

Just a few weeks ago several favorite classical programs were terminated and the CBC plans to replace them with more “eclectic” programs. (i.e., programs with more popular musical content)

In fact, there are several issues involved here, one being that the CBC Vancouver Orchestra is the last radio orchestra in North America. Why is that? Remember the NBC Symphony created for Toscanini? Remember the CBC Symphony, a Toronto-based ensemble which attracted the likes of Sir Thomas Beecham, Pierre Boulez, Karl Böhm, Pierre Monteux and many other distinguished maestros? Remember the CJRT Orchestra? Pardon me for mentioning this Toronto orchestra but I created it and since I write this blog I reserve the right to mention it at every opportunity. Not the least of its exploits during its lifetime (1972-1990) was the Canadian premiere of Sibelius’ Kullervo Symphony.

There is no question that radio orchestras added greatly to programming choices for Canadian and American listeners, and still do for listeners in the U.K. and Europe. The Bavarian Radio Symphony was, and still is one of the world’s great orchestras.

The CBC Vancouver Orchestra has had a long (70 years – from 1938 to the present) history and under John Avison, John Eliot Gardiner and Mario Bernardi its regular broadcasts have contributed greatly to musical life not only in Vancouver but across the country. But, for a variety of reasons – economics being one - it has long since ceased to play the role it once did.

It is more cost efficient today for the CBC today to record and broadcast live concerts by more than 30 Canadian professional orchestras than to maintain its own orchestra; it is well known that these orchestras will gladly accept programming “suggestions” from the CBC for the sake of income and exposure.

Still, it is always sad to let go of a piece of our cultural heritage.

Another issue involved here is the general programming direction being taken by CBC Radio. About every ten years the CBC bigwigs feel compelled to reorganize and reinvent themselves. No doubt they are given a nudge or two by some politicians to whom the CBC is some kind of communist plot to subvert the Canadian psyche. In spite of the inflences at play, the CBC remains a bastion of sanity in its news and public affairs departments. In my opinion, however, it is a shambles everywhere else.

Perhaps a shambles is inevitable given the CBC’s mandate to be all things to all peoples in a vast and diverse land. Its’ original mandate was simpler: bring information and culture to everyone in Canada, no matter how remote the location. Government money was needed to do this because there was no profit incentive for anyone else to do it.

As Canada has grown, that rationale makes less sense; hence the need to rethink and re-justify the millions being wire-transferred from Ottawa. Times have changed. There are plenty of commercial broadcasters to satisfy the broad range of listener tastes.

Finally, there is the nagging fact that only 5% of us have any interest whatsoever in classical music. Many folks often ask why their tax dollars go to support this stuff that almost no one wants.

Good question. The CBC can answer it quite effectively these days because it has more options. It offers listeners not one, but several radio channels to choose from and it can now make use of the internet too. The CBC can undoubtedly find a way to satisfy all of its listeners today – those who want classical music as well as those who want something  else.

People naturally react badly when some unseen bureaucrat intrudes on their comfort zone, so the hue and cry over the loss of the last North American Radio Orchestra is understandable; realistically, however, there are plenty of choices in today’s media environment for listeners of all persuasions, and it is not difficult to find them.

I think this time around the CBC managers have good sense and technology on their side.

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