Chris Swithinbank writes music.

Last night, Richard Rijnvos was awarded the Matthijs Vermeulen Award, a bi­en­nial prize for a Dutch com­poser con­sidered to have ‘com­posed an im­portant piece in the field of con­tem­porary music’. As you can hear below, his ac­cept­ance speech was a fiery af­fair, at­tacking the cur­rent Dutch government’s policy of swingeing cuts to arts and music funding in the country. For non-Dutch speakers I have trans­lated the text of his speech below. (You can find the ori­ginal as a PDF here.)

While you’re here, the Muziek Centrum Nederland, which I think is prob­ably the best music in­form­a­tion centre in the world, faces 100% cuts to its gov­ern­ment funding. They are run­ning a pe­ti­tion asking for sup­port against the cuts that I would urge you to sign.

*

Acceptance Speech Richard Rijnvos

Upon re­ceipt of the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize, awarded during Toonzetters on 22 June 2011 in the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ.

The or­gan­isers have po­litely asked me not to speak for longer than three minutes. I’ll just start my stop­watch. (Starts stop­watch) So!

It is — I think — fairly ob­vious when I say that I am de­lighted to re­ceive the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize. It is — I think — fairly ob­vious when I say that I am de­lighted to re­ceive the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize for the the second time.

Some of you will know that for a while now I have been living and working in Durham; Durham, a small pic­tur­esque town in the shadow of Newcastle in the North of England.

We know England as the country of good man­ners, as the country where tra­di­tions are held in high re­gard, and where na­tion­alism is not a dirty word. I usu­ally keep my dis­tance from any kind of sen­ti­mental chau­vinism, but in light of the dis­astrous de­cisions re­garding art and cul­ture policy of the cur­rent [Dutch] gov­ern­ment, I will gladly make an ex­cep­tion here:

I am proud of this award. I am proud of every note that sounds in Die Kammersängerin. I am proud of Marije van Stralen and the Ives Ensemble who bring my song cycle to life with as much en­thu­siasm as ultra pro­fes­sional pre­ci­sion. I am proud of the fact that I am an artist.

Yes, ladies and gen­tlemen, you heard me right: I am proud of my­self. Why?
Because the gov­ern­ment isn’t but should be.
Don’t get me wrong: the arts are also having their funding cut in Great Britain, but not with the cyn­ical, vin­dictive, hateful un­der­tones that are cur­rently em­ployed by many a politi­cian in the Hague, un­doubtedly driven by the ap­par­ently in­erad­ic­able apathy that the Netherlands loves so much.

We, artists, have re­cently been suc­cess­ively por­trayed as left-wing hob­by­ists, subsidy-spongers, and re­cently politi­cians can’t resist taking an­other shot, making artists look like subsidy-enslaved idiots. We are junkies. It seems as if the polit­ical lords and ladies have no in­terest in good man­ners. And no in­terest in cul­tural tra­di­tions. And also have no shred of cul­tural chauvinism.

I am proud of my­self. Why?
Because the gov­ern­ment isn’t. But it should be.

Rita Verdonk once thought the time right for yet an­other pop­u­list party.
T.O.N. Trots op Nederland [Proud of the Netherlands].

It is high time for a new polit­ical party:
T.O.N.K.
Trots op Nederlandse Kunstenaars [Proud of Dutch Artists].

(looks at stop­watch) My time is up. Thank you for your attention.