Madam, - Your Editorials on music training matters are always welcome, highlighting as they do the inadequacies of infrastructural support and general State neglect of music education.
However, your excoriation (April 18th) of the recent decision by the board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland cannot go unchallenged, as it fails to address the core issue which informed this decision. It was a decision arrived at with the greatest reluctance and in the context of a commitment to continuing review.
The plain fact of the matter, as was made abundantly clear in chairman John Dennehy's letter to this page (April 14th), was that the members of the senior orchestra voted with their feet, as it were, by failing to register in sufficient numbers this year for the semi-annual summer course. In this sense, the orchestra was not so much disbanded by the board as by those members who failed to register.
While the board saw this process as a recent trend with which it was preparing to deal, the sudden collapse confronting us in March did take us by surprise and presented us with a problem demanding immediate action.
The strength of the public reaction to this decision would suggest that it will, one hopes, be a temporary one and that the senior orchestra can be soon restored. But this will happen only if enough players commit to the ensemble.
You assert that it "is unconvincing and seems bizarre that the NYOI decision was based on a scarcity of musicians of sufficient calibre". Of course there are musicians of sufficient calibre: the problem is there are far more performing outlets for their talents today than was the case 10 or 20 years ago, and our pool of highly talented, strongly motivated and globally aware young musicians are fully aware of this. Add to this the fact that young people in the post-18 age group naturally diversify in interests and commitments with the passage of time, and we do in fact find ourselves with a diminishing pool of players available to, and prepared to commit to, the senior orchestra. So I would strongly challenge your basic assertion in this regard, as would (I think) parents of older performers and professional instrumental teachers in our third-level music colleges.
Nothing would give greater satisfaction to the board of the NYOI than to see the senior orchestra restored, and we will certainly be exploring this option with urgency and with rigour and vigour. But this can only be achieved if players of suitable calibre come forward in sufficient numbers to form a balanced ensemble. - Yours, etc,
GERARD GILLEN, Department of Music, NUI Maynooth, Member of Board, NYOI.