In January last year the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, took everyone by surprise when he publicly espoused the establishment of a national centre for the performing arts. Apart from Richie Ryan's formal abandonment of the John F Kennedy Memorial Hall project and instigation of what was to become the National Concert Hall, it's difficult to recall a politician in power taking up a musical cause with such alacrity. And Mr Ahern warmed all musical hearts by pointing out that the proposed third-level development should be carried out "without prejudice", to encourage widespread musical education at more elementary levels.
In the 15 months since then, there has been silence, lots of speculation, and, among interested members of the musical public, a lot of confusion. Pianist and director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, John O'Conor, the man who got Bertie on-side, would like his desiderata for what he calls IAPA (the Irish Academy for the Performing Arts) to remain as vague as possible. The detailing of specifics, he fears, might prove divisive. The inter-departmental committee announced by the Taoiseach delivered an interim report last summer. Deliberations with a broader remit are continuing between the Departments of Education and Arts and Heritage. But not even the content of the interim report has yet been made public.
With the National Concert Hall already ensconced in Earlsfort Terrace, the original proposal - that the IAPA be situated in Earlsfort Terrace - has the politically attractive resonances of doubling-up and cost-saving. Quite what the relationship of performing space and educational institution would be no one has said. Nor has any serious evaluation of the issues of sound-proofing an old building or providing a dedicated auditorium for student use been made public. And a project involving Earlsfort Terrace would require the expensive (£25 million-plus) relocation of UCD's facilities there to new buildings in Belfield.
In the official vacuum, speculation has run quite wild. There has been talk of IAPA being split over different campuses; of the different disciplines (music, dance, theatre) being served in different parts of the country; even of music tuition itself being split up and spread around. The musical track-record of the Department of Education is sufficiently poor that some people have no difficulty in believing that such a scenario might be seriously considered, with the possibility of singers stranded without pianists, and an academy orchestra impossible to form because the strings are in another town.
Attractive arguments have emanated from the University of Limerick, on the lines that its current post-graduate courses identify it as a core on which to develop a much larger institution. The music school at Bloomington in Indiana has been quoted as a model, and a very interesting one it is, too. The state of Indiana has a population of 5.9 million, the town of Bloomington around 60,000. The university's school of music has a student population of 1,719 (among them 378 singers, 203 pianists, 119 violinists) and a full-time faculty of 147. The Bloomington campus of the University of Indiana, however, has an operating budget of over $850 million, the university as a whole $1.7 billion. By comparison TCD runs on a budget of IR£81 million. I don't think Ireland can yet aspire to enter the Bloomington league.
YET the statistics are relevant. The aspirations of John O'Conor as well as those behind the postgraduate courses at UL's World Music Centre are to attract an international student population to Ireland. And if the courses at any future Irish academy did not match up to what's on offer in other parts of the world, particularly in other European Union countries, the cream of Irish musicians would continue its educational exodus in pursuit of the best. And, of course, UL is also experiencing fear that its laudable developments could well be swept aside in the concentration of resources on a new national institution. But Limerick would be an unsatisfactory choice for a national music academy. The limited musical provision in our schools sends our students on to third level in a musically deprived state. They need to be able to share in the musical life of the capital for the educational value of getting to know the major works of the repertoire and hearing the important musicians of the day who come to visit. In this regard, Limerick - Irish Chamber Orchestra, University Concert Hall and all - would be a poor substitute for Dublin.
The likely impact of any new development on other existing music educational institutions is not at all clear. John O'Conor would like to see the RIAM and the DIT Conservatory of Music both subsumed into IAPA, a conclusion he reached without consulting DIT. In fact, the whole impact on established music education providers of any new conservatoire-style institution is an aspect of the IAPA idea that is causing major concern, not least because the existing establishments have yet to be drawn fully into a real consultation process. If the heads of our music schools and university departments are in the dark, it's small wonder that the general public is bemused.
And what about dance, theatre, film, or even opera? The Minister for Arts and Heritage, Sile De Valera, must believe all of these could be adequately served on the Earlsfort Terrace site. She has been back in contact with UCD to establish the college's terms for the co-operative transfer of the property.
Yet the underlying fact is that the real need in the area of music education in this country is for adequate provision in our primary and secondary schools. Ask anyone who knows or cares about the subject and that's what they'll all tell you. With a minimum of openness and transparency, and the spectre of interested parties manoeuvring their political connections behind the scenes, another spectre now looms: that a decision might be announced about an academy of the performing arts only to create the same sort of belated furore as the recent Oireachtas report on traditional Irish music.
