Spain – On Friday 22 March, the AMPOS association, representing orchestra musicians in Spain and collecting society AIE are organising a mega-concert in Barcelona to express music performers’ anger over the Rajoy government’s decision to increase the VAT rate from 8 to 21%, the level applicable to certain cultural services (performing arts, cinema, music etc.) and reduce public aid to this sector. These decisions seriously jeopardize the future of Spanish orchestras and the number of concert-goers.
This concert is already an event of international scope, featuring musicians fom Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands who will be joining their Spanish colleagues for this mega-concert which, in addition, will have broad media coverage.
The “Todos Somos Musica” concert, conducted by Luis Cobos, will be taking place on Friday 22 March at 21.00 at Barcelona’s Auditori. Its first part will be dedicated to the symphony repertoire with orchestras and choirs. During the second part, the orchestra will accompany Spanish pop stars.
FIM is providing its total support for this event and reaffirms the responsibility of public authorities to maintain and develop symphony orchestras as a public service due to citizens. Dozens of years of efforts to build up orchestral phalanxes of world renown must not be decimated by hasty decisions of a purely cyclical economic nature.
Source: Internationale Musikerföderation