The State's flagship professional choir, the National Chamber Choir, has announced the resignation of its artistic director, Celso Antunes, and chief executive, Karina Lundström, who was also one of its founders. David Byers, a member of the nine-member board, has also resigned.
The choir has been under financial pressure due to progressive reductions in its subvention from RTÉ, scheduled to drop from €260,000 in 2005 to €115,000 in 2008. Although the choir is not in deficit, it has been having limited success in securing other funding to cope with projected shortfalls.
The resignations stem from an internal split about the way forward in the wake of a consultants' report commissioned last year.
Mr Antunes issued a statement pointing the finger unequivocally at the board, which he claimed to be dominated by figures who were artistically "insensitive and uninformed". These "dominating figures," he said, "have decided that the future of the group lies in a commercially driven strategy".
Pressures put on Ms Lundström, he added, amounted to "deplorable treatment," which was "completely inexcusable". He also expressed disappointment at the Arts Council's response, saying "support has been constantly sought, but it has never effectively materialised". The 17-member choir, which receives a revenue grant of €345,000 from the Arts Council, gave more than 40 performances last year.
Ms Lundström said: "I felt I could no longer work with a board whose artistic direction was totally opposite to where I felt the choir should be going, given it was the direction that had brought us to the state of excellence that had been achieved."
Board member David Byers, chief executive of the Ulster Orchestra, who also serves on the boards of the National Concert Hall and Wexford Festival Opera, told The Irish Times: "Some very hardline stances have been taken around the current debate about the funding shortfall faced by the NCC, internally on both extreme sides of the debate, and seemingly externally by the Arts Council."
"Clearly," Mr Byers continued, "because of reduced income from a number of sources, there does need to be an urgent rethink of the NCC's funding strategy and the ways in which the choir addresses its audiences."
The board statement thanked Ms Lundström and Mr Antunes "for their great contribution to the development of the NCC and to professional choral singing in Ireland." The Arts Council says it is aware of the resignations and "continues to support the choir through this period of change".