Plans have collapsed for the RTÉ Concert Orchestra to become orchestra-in-residence at the new €35 million Helix Centre, which is due to open at Dublin City University next month.
A dispute between RTÉ and the Helix Centre has prevented the two sides from reaching agreement about the terms on which the orchestra would take up residency in the main 1,200-seat auditorium, the Mahony Hall.
The RTÉCO residency was mentioned as a core aspect of the venue's operation when the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, first announced details of the project in April 2000.
Negotiations between RTÉ and DCU about the use of the new hall were known to have run into difficulties early last year. But the first public signal of the extent and duration of those difficulties came late last month, when the Helix Centre issued a 16-page brochure detailing events from October to March without including a single mention of RTÉ or the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
The original plans were for RTÉ to make a capital investment in the new venue in order to ensure its suitability as a home for the RTÉCO. The players and orchestra management were to move from their current base at Studio 1 in Donnybrook, and the new venue was to become the orchestra's rehearsal and performance space.
On Wednesday the members of the orchestra were told by RTÉ's director of music, Mr Niall Doyle, that the plans to use the Helix Centre as a rehearsal and management base had been dropped.
RTÉ's capital investment in the new centre, believed to be of the order of €3 million, will not now be made. The orchestra will perform at the Helix Centre, where it is due to give the gala opening concert on Wednesday, October 16th.But rehearsals will remain at Studio 1 in Donnybrook, a space that has long been deemed unsatisfactory on acoustic and other grounds by both players and RTE management.
Part of the RTE capital investment planned for the Helix Centre is now expected to be diverted into refurbishment of the existing studio.
