Hello,
maybe I am a bit of a windmill fighter.
I really understand the needs of fundraising. But recapitulate the
reasoning about fundraising the conclusion is:
Those people knew nothing about the hurdy-gurdy.
Now tey can read in the newspapers, looking like being backuped by the
University of Georgia, the hurdy-gurdy is a national celtic medieval
experiment.
Guess what people will belive.
In german there is a saying
"Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel" ("the end justifies the means")
which somtimes is refered as too
"Die Mittel heiligen den Zweck"
saying something like
"The funds worship the means" :-)
Is it really neccessary to over and over chew through all thouse old
but still untrue phrases to get the people interested?
Could we not start presenting something a bit more real?
kind regards,
Simon
Am 12.10.2006 um 03:24 schrieb Jean-Paul Carton:
Thanks Alden! I like the point you make about the arts in the US,
which is
essential here. It is true that the connection with Brittany had
probably a
lot to do with the funding of the hurdy-gurdy event (the only one
receiving
outside funding in the 7-Nations project). Actually, because of that
connection, we hope that our students and the local community,
including the
Scott-Irish American community in Savannah will not only be exposed to
an
instrument about which they generally know nothing (in a class of 150
students yesterday, no one had the faintest idea of what a hg is; a
couple
of weeks ago, during a short demonstration in another class, I was
asked how
the air circulated through the instrument to make that sound), but
they will
also hear the various ideas thrown at this list by folks tonight (the
purpose of the series, including redefining or throwing away terms
like the
"7 Nations"), they'll listen to music most (sometimes all of them) have
never heard, from the Renaissance(I can't remember if Gilles told me
he was
going to play some medieval pieces)to what Patrick and Gilles are
currently
doing, and ... they may be tempted to go to hurdy-gurdy festivals and
buy an
instrument from the great luthiers on this list. All of that would be
nice... we hope its works and that they show up...
Regards,
Jean-Paul
http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~jnpcrtn/
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 7:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [HG] Celticness and Arts funding - was the Savannah Morning
News
Great post, Jean-Paul.
Whatever the merits of the discussion of "Celticness" may be, there's
another
factor here. Funding for the arts in the US is notoriously scarce,
and has
become even more scarce since another endeavor is sucking up a large
share
of
the taxes we pay. Consequently people in arts groups are often
willing to
stretch a point in order to get funding for their projects. If one
needs to
apply to a group that funds Breton events, there's an incentive for
finding
a
Breton connection to your event so that one can get funded. Such
connections
often get carried into the publicity material, so that the funding
agency
can
see that their money was well-spent.
Regardless of everything else, I think Jean-Paul should get a big
round of
applause for putting together this event. I can personally testify
that
it's
a huge amount of effort. As a community I believe that we should be
supporting the larger-picture ideas and applauding the time and energy
that
went into creating them, not worrying so much about the fine points of
the
press releases.
Good job, Jean-Paul!!
Alden
