I am excited, grateful and relieved to be able to say that the English Symphony Orchestra have received a generous grant in support of our Autumn 2023 season from Arts Council England.Words can’t fully express my gratitude to everyone who wrote in support of our work.
After the failure of our last application in the spring, it was entirely possible that, given the 14 week waiting time on application decisions, we might not be able to resume regular work until 2024.
I’m incredibly grateful to our colleagues at ACE Midlands who allowed us to make a Time Sensitive Application. My friend and colleague Seb Lovell-Huckle and I worked round the clock with the ESO team to put together a new 245 page application in just over a week, and the good folks at ACE Midlands were able to evaluate and approve it at similar speed.
The result is that our multi-county region of over 1.4 million people will have their only resident professional orchestra playing their hearts out in a fantastic series of concerts this autumn, delivering youth courses and supporting people living with dementia and other life challenges in the community. And the orchestra will be able to provide a significant amount of work for some of the best and nicest musicians in the country.
It also means that we need to start a new set of applications this week, as ,from February, we are starting from zero again. It’s a crazy world.
Most of all, I’m so grateful to be able to look forward to working with my colleagues in the orchestra far sooner than feared. I’ve missed them so much.
Details of concerts and programmes coming soon at eso.co.uk
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