A leading figure in the Ottawa arts scene says the cultural sector is underfunded by the city, and the issue is moving to centre stage during municipal budget-making this month — just ahead of Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations next year.
Julian Armour, director of the annual Music and Beyond festival, said the event is “funded at a very low level for a major international festival.” Noting that the City of Ottawa covers just three per cent of the event’s $1.6 million budget, Armour added that: “We are grateful for the amount that we get (from the city), but we get four times that from the province of Ontario.”
Armour said he’s proud to organize the annual festival that explores links between classical music, literature, dance, theatre, and even gastronomy and wine.
Since 2010, the 75 events of the Music and Beyond festival have animated numerous venues in the central part of the city. Many classical concerts are held in Centretown churches, the main venue being the Dominion Chalmers United Church.
Armour said he’d like to hold more events to educate young people about classical music.
He would also like to recruit more staff and pay his employees better wages.
“One of the hardest things when you don’t have enough money is continuity,” he said. “I would love to offer full-time, meaningful, year-round jobs and make a long-term commitment to my staff.”
During the festival, the organization relies mainly on more than 350 volunteers. “If we didn’t have these volunteers, “ said Armour, “we wouldn’t be operating.”
Anastasia Krachkovskaya designs the graphics and the website for Music and Beyond. She is employed for almost the whole year, but earns minimum wage. She said she wouldn’t mind “getting paid a little bit more” and that better funding for the festival might allow her to work more consistent hours.
Low pay and organizational instability makes it difficult for arts groups to keep their employees. Many will eventualy leave the cultural sector for jobs in the public service or move to cities where available resources are greater.
Armour said the challenges facing Music and Beyond are not an exception. The closing of the Opera Lyra last year after it ran into financial difficulties is a high-profile example of the problem, he said.
Armour said that there was a hope for change in 2012 with the promise of a multi-year action plan for supporting the arts, but that failed to materialize. The plan would have seen much more funding for arts groups — about $3.7 million more than current levels.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told CBC recently that such proposed funding increases were never guaranteed.
“The promise (the plan) was predicated on had to go through the budget process,” Watson said. “There’s never enough money to do everything that everyone wants.”
He added that the city “spent more money than we have before” on the arts, pointing to the ongoing Arts Court and Ottawa Art Gallery redevelopment project, which is costing the municipality more than $17 million.
The 2017 draft budget revealed in early November proposed a 1.5 per cent increase in funding for arts organizations and a $150,000 Arts Momentum Fund created especially for cultural projects during the celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary next year.
But it’s not enough, according to Armour. “I hoped that they will put more money in and make sure the arts and festivals are able to really celebrate, and that didn’t happen,” he said. “I am very disappointed.”