Since its founding in 1980, the Basel Sinfonietta has stood for musical diversity and democratic self-governance. In our programs, we strive to transcend concert conventions and repertoire boundaries, demonstrating our openness to other genres and cultures. In recent years, this has enabled us to realize collaborations with artists from a wide range of cultures and styles. As an ensemble that filled over 363 positions with freelance musicians across six projects in the 2023/24 season, we endeavor to exemplify how the needs of musicians, such as fair wages, can be met in the day-to-day operations of an orchestra.
In the dispute over the distribution of funding, the Basel Sinfonietta finds itself in a stalemate. On the one hand, we cannot, based on our own understanding of ourselves, oppose an initiative whose core aims are musical diversity and fair wages for freelance musicians. On the other hand, as a "classical" orchestra, we want to stand in solidarity with our colleagues in the other Basel ensembles, who guarantee the preservation of the musical tradition upon which the music we perform in our programs today rests.
We are convinced that diverse, equitable, and sustainable cultural funding should not come at the expense of existing structures. For our colleagues and ourselves, we desire reliability and continuity so that we can continue our work at the highest level. Unfortunately, the Music Diversity Initiative leaves unanswered the question of whether this would be the case if it were adopted. On the contrary, significant cuts, including for the Basel Sinfonietta, are highly likely.
Therefore, we cannot support the initiative in its current form.
Your Basel Sinfonietta
