The appointment of the Vogler String Quartet from Berlin as quartet-in-residence in Sligo will surely stand as a milestone in Ireland's musical life. When the project was announced less than a year ago, few would have imagined the outcome being the arrival in the North West of one of the leading groups on the world concert circuit, with a string of fine recordings behind them, as strong in contemporary music as in the classics of the repertoire.
It is particularly heartening that the quartet-in-residence project should have materialised through a novel strategic partnership at local and national level. Great credit is due to the imaginative co-operation of the Arts Office of Sligo County Council and Corporation, Music Network and the Arts Council. The employment of a single small group of musicians may seem a small move, but in terms of the very limited resourcing of musical activity in the State it is of great significance.
It doubles the number of full-time chamber musicians at work and it extends the list of employers for civilian full-time musicians beyond RTE and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. The Army, strange as it may seem, remains the largest musical employer in the state. To put the matter in another perspective, the hundreds of concerts co-ordinated each year by the Music Network, represent an annual investment amounting to less than 12 average salaries. The challenge for someone who is not a soloist of making a living in Ireland through performance outside of an orchestra is immense.
The Music Network, which holds the fort as the national music development agency, hopes to see at least seven similar ensembles in residencies around the State. Plans are already afoot for a brass quintet in Waterford and a wind quintet in Galway. With the Government apparently poised to establish an Irish Academy for the Performing Arts (IAPA), it is essential that serious attention be paid to the employment prospects of the graduates it will produce. It is to be hoped that the forthcoming Arts Plan will include provision and support for the kind of developments envisaged by Music Network. The Sligo initiative is certainly one which merits full attention as a model for wider development.
One of the key components of the Sligo model is the educational brief which the Voglers have embraced so enthusiastically. The PIANO Report, which was so important in vaulting IAPA onto the political agenda, also pointed out that there is no official school of music north of a line from Dublin to Galway. Norway, with population of 4.2 million, has more than 350 music schools and growing. Iceland, with a population less than County Cork, has over 70. Welcome as both the IAPA and Sligo quartet projects are, they are actually isolated developments. With one of the most underdeveloped musical infrastructures in Europe - in education, Northern Ireland is luxuriantly resourced by comparison - this State has yet to define or declare a national music policy. For the major agencies involved - RTE, the Arts Council, the Department of Education and the Department of Arts and Heritage - it is a vacuum demanding to be filled.