Re: Re: OT: French composers are leaving France for the US?

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Per Boysen wrote:
> Indeed surprising, given the fact that while most European countries
> are adapting to the bad economic times by decreasing tax financed
> support for the arts France has increased that budget post by seven
> percent.

Wow, Per, that's shocking to me to hear.

The reason I say is that in the last half of the 90's decade,  I toured 
a lot
in France with Bob Brozman when the French were incredibly supportive of 
the arts
  and my impressions has been that things have really changed for the 
worst there in
recent years.

At that time the French government was so supportive of the arts that 
many rural
regional towns had full time, paid 'event coordinators' who would book a 
season
of music, annually, to go into the local 500-700 seat hall.

These people were trained to ferret out talented musical groups and 
present them in a weekly
concert series (usually in the winter).

Because these places were in the middle of the country (far away from 
Paris and other big
French cities)  people from 150 kilometers around would purchase season 
tickets to the events
and these events were always sold out.

Through French government subsidies, the salaries of these 'Event 
Coordinators' and the fact that
local rural populations would support these music series financially,  
it gave the coordinators
the freedom to take chances on high quality musical acts that weren't 
known necessarily and
had no 'draw' in the area.   The quality of the acts on these bills was 
universally very high.

Frequently, we'd roll into a community in Southern France, play to a 
packed , sold out house
of several hundred people and be treated like rock stars in the 
process.   Of course, because we
were good,  we'd be hired back by popular demand after we had played 
somewhere successfully
for the first time.

As an American I was shocked to see this kind of support there and I 
fell in love with the people
of France that I met.  They were so supportive of music it seemed to me.

One night,  we played at a village concert hall in the dead of winter 
(it was snowing outside and very
cold).    At the end of the concert, we were treated to a gourmet meal 
by a couple of chefs from
the best restaurants in the region.   These folks had shut their 
restaurants down to make the four of us this gourmet meal.  At the end 
of the meal,  we were presented with bottles of wine that had our names 
printed on
the labels from regional vintners and then presented with a beautiful 
Marzipan cake  that had our
likenesses airbrushed on with colored icing (and an amazing resemblance 
it bore).   This largesse was jaw dropping to me.

Suddenly , in the middle of desert,  we were interrupted and told to 
please go outside into the
cold and the snow.    We walked out there and the mayor and a few local 
dignitaries walked up
and introduced themselves and then there was a fireworks display that 
suddenly commenced
in our honor.

I sat there in the freezing snow, watching the fireworks with tears 
streaming down my face.
I had NEVER been treated like that anywhere in all of my travels and 
certainly never in the
United States.  It was just overwhelming to me and I was overcome with 
emotion.

Unfortunately,  last time I talked to Bob Brozman (I no longer perform 
in his band)  he said that this
system had fallen apart due to lack of funds and lack of public interest.

It made me so sad to hear that.   Maybe it's coming back (this statistic 
looks promising).
I hope so.

It's the way things should be , if you ask me.

Rick Walker