The Musicians Union of Ireland (MUI) is to repeat last year's public protest about Wexford Festival Opera's ongoing failure to engage Irish musicians. The protest will be made outside the Theatre Royal next Thursday, the opening night of this year's festival.
For the last three years, the festival has used the services of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus. It replaced the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, whose work for the festival extended back a number of decades.
The MUI's secretary, Mr John Swift, has called on the festival itself, the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, the Arts Council, Wexford County Council, Wexford Town Council and Wexford Chamber of Commerce, to facilitate the engagement of Irish-based musicians at future Wexford festivals.
"As a headline event in Ireland's artistic year," he said, "the Wexford Festival should showcase Ireland's musicians and at the same time provide them with significant employment."
This year's orchestra, the Krakow Philharmonic, comes from Poland, enabling the festival to counter one of the major objections raised last year by the MUI, that musicians were being brought in not just from outside of Ireland but from outside the European Union.
"The issue is essentially one of cheap labour," Mr Swift said. He expressed fears that "the Krakow orchestra has been engaged on terms and conditions significantly below EU standards".
The festival, he said, "is reported to generate €15 million annually for the local economy. Sufficient funding should therefore be available to engage Irish-based musicians on terms and conditions in line with EU norms."
Wexford Festival's chief executive, Mr Jerome Hynes, dismissed concerns about EU norms. "They are working under entirely acceptable conditions," he said. "We're happy with them, they're happy with them."
The Arts Council has already expressed formal concerns about the lack of Irish involvement. When informing the festival of its €800,000 grant for 2004, the council noted Wexford's "failure to nurture Irish opera artists and practitioners" and requested the festival to "respond with vigour" to this issue.
Resolving the non-use in Wexford of Irish singers, directors, designers and musicians will be one of the major tasks facing the festival's new artistic director, Mr David Agler. Mr Agler has told The Irish Times that the Krakow orchestra has been hired on a three-year contract. Wexford Festival's chief executive, Mr Jerome Hynes, is also vice-chairman of the Arts Council.
