European Union Baroque Orchestra to Move to Belgium Because of Brexit

The European Union Baroque Orchestra is moving to Belgium for fear that their musicians will be affected by the Brexit vote.

A letter from a Board of Directors states, in part:

"Brexit will mean vastly more burdensome travelling and employment procedures for our young musicians who come from across the continent and perform in a different country every night. And our current administrative 2 home in the UK will doubtless affect our access to EU funding in future. That's why we are so pleased that AMUZ are keen to give EUBO a new legal and organisational home in Belgium. Travelling musicians are fundamental to the EUBO concept - a characteristic of Europe's musical heritage since before baroque times. Today's 25-strong band comprises young musicians from 12 EU countries typically performing in a different country every night. We are keen to avoid sacrificing that or our "EU" ambassador status."

"The current orchestra has no UK members, but EUBO's administration is entirely British. With the UK outside the EU and free movement to and from the UK in all likelihood ended, EUBO's operation will become seriously compromised, to say nothing of our likely future access to EU and other funds. The EMBA project itself has in our view gone extremely well. We have almost completed two of the planned four annual cycles, working closely with our excellent partners who have gone the extra mile to support our musicians, to introduce us to new possibilities, and to bring in new audiences. We are very grateful to them all. Nevertheless, faced with the increasingly difficult operating climate, EUBO's management and Board of Trustees have been looking for a strategic way to secure EUBO's future for another 30 years. The solution we have found is one that fills us with delight and confidence.

Our long-standing friends at AMUZ in Antwerp, Belgium, have offered to provide a legal and physical home to EUBO. We believe that EUBO's long-term future (as well as its name and, at least for a while, the involvement of Paul James and Emma Wilkinson) is secure with AMUZ whose track record chimes so well with our own. AMUZ is already in discussion with several grant-making organisations and the plan is for the new EUBO, hosted at AMUZ, to be operational from 2018.

To allow for a successful transition, therefore, EUBO's Board of Trustees has decided to terminate the EMBA project at this, its midway point. This means that when the current orchestra completes its annual cycle of tours at the end of March, EMBA will cease its planned activities. There will be no auditions for EUBO held this April, and the cycle of concerts that we had planned for the remainder of 2017 and thereafter will for the most part not now take place.

As experienced practitioners in the music business, we know all too well how these cancellations will inconvenience, hurt and disappoint our many loyal friends, colleagues and partners as well as prospective orchestral players. We have striven to find a way to avoid this outcome. Having looked at all options, however, we have been forced to the conclusion that carrying on as we were is no longer possible.

A strategic transition out of the UK to a new future with AMUZ is the most viable way forward. We wanted everyone involved with EUBO to hear this news as early as possible and at the same time. But we are acutely aware that its practical consequences affect all of you in different ways. So we have prepared the attached FAQs which add detail for the various categories of affected people. We know too that each of you will have particular questions and anxieties, and we are more than happy to try and answer them over the phone. We very much hope that, in due course, all of us can raise a glass to the new EUBO@AMUZ, its musicians, and the noble cause of baroque music."

Read more here.

The European Union Baroque Orchestra is like no other orchestra: its modus operandi since its foundation in 1985 has been to audition and select new personnel annually. EUBO's ephemeral existence makes its concerts special: live performances enjoying all the technical accomplishment of the best young baroque musicians in Europe, allied to an infectious undimmed sense of discovery and enjoyment. "The young EUBO musicians play with a captivating freshness and vitality that is hard to match, though they are also as technically accomplished as the members of much more experienced groups." (Early Music)

Members of EUBO come from all over the EU to gain performing experience, working together with some of the world's finest baroque music specialists who nurture and influence the young EUBO musicians with their individual charismatic mixture of leading, educating and performing. Under the inspirational guidance of Music Director Lars Ulrik Mortensen and guest directors Margaret Faultless, Alfredo Bernardini, Enrico Onofri, Alexis Kossenko, Amandine Beyer and Sergio Azzolini, EUBO will perform throughout the EU during 2016, 2017 and 2018. In recent seasons Ton Koopman, Roy Goodman, Rachel Podger, Riccardo Minasi, Paul Agnew, Gottfried von der Goltz and Stefano Montanari have also worked with the orchestra. Over the years EUBO has recorded several CDs, the last four under the direction of Lars Ulrik Mortensen. The most recent release features Vivaldi's Four Seasons with four EUBO alumni as soloists, and Vivaldi's rarely recorded sonnets spoken in the original Italian.

Tours take the talented young orchestra to all corners of Europe - from celebrated city concert halls, to seaside summer festivals, to monasteries nestling in autumnal forests, and to winter celebrations in beautiful churches. And at the centre of these great arcs of European travelling EUBO has established residencies in several cities, most notably as 'orchestra-in-residence' in Echternach, Luxembourg, where, with the support of its local partners, it is creating a centre of excellence for baroque music. EUBO's touring programme is assisted by sponsorship from The Early Music Shop.

EUBO is delighted to be partnered by nine European organisations within a co-operation project 'EUBO Mobile Baroque Academy' with co-funding from the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. The project addresses the unequal provision across the EU of baroque music education and performance in new and creative ways. EUBO has been honoured with the status of Cultural Ambassador for the European Union in perpetuity.