The board of Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen says in a press release that they have to cancel several of this year’s concerts due to insufficient funding. This is part of a final attempt to secure the ensemble’s future operations. Most of the planned activities will be maintained in the first half of 2025.
Athelas was founded in 1990 and is the only Danish ensemble made up of musicians who each specialize in playing compositional music from the 20th and 21st centuries.
John Frandsen, Chairman of the Board, says: ‘We are proud that Athelas again and again lives up to the high artistic demands of a special ensemble – what the Danish Arts Foundation calls lighthouses in the music industry. But the grants from the Art Foundation have not kept up. We have reached a pain point: the demands set by the Danish Arts Foundation for a professional operation of the ensemble cannot be met within the current grant. The fact is that the current grant no longer covers even the most basic operating expenses. »
In the current framework agreement with the Danish Arts Foundation for the period 2024 – 2027, the ensemble receives less annual funding than the ensemble received in monetary terms 20 years ago.
The news release says: « The reduction in the annual funding amount has happened gradually over 15 years. ATHELAS now receives DKK 1.2 million annually from Kunstfonden to run the 16-person ensemble. (…) With the latest cut for the period 2024 – 2027, and a current rejection from Kunstfonden’s Project Support Committee for Music for a special grant to ensure a minimum operation, it is no longer possible to run the ensemble professionally. »
