A small music space in Winchester? - TrustNews July 17
Why would anyone want to build a small music space in Winchester? After all, the city has a very lively music programme and there are any number of buildings that are pressed into use for successful public concerts. That is perfectly true, but it is also true that not one of those buildings meets all the requirements of a proper space for music making - excellent acoustics and sightlines, comfort, ease of access, appropriate environment and supporting facilities. In 2014 we realised that the Winchester Chamber Music Festival was rapidly outgrowing the Discovery Centre at 200 seats and that the only other auditorium that was available was the Theatre Royal at 400. (The facilities at Winchester College and St Swithun’s School exclude themselves not least because their availability for public concerts is constrained by their own activities). The Theatre Royal's excellent characteristics as a playhouse-tend to fight its effectiveness as a concert hall, and after three years of experimenting we have probably achieved the best possible acoustic result, but at the expense of making the players invisible from most of the Circle, thus reducing the audience potential.
In 2015 we wrote an unsolicited report for Winchester City Council making the case for such a space, including an outline brief for the building, models of the capital and revenue implications and a draft proposal for procuring the project - we consulted most of the musical, and some other, interests in Winchester and found an encouraging level of support. It is still our hope that the City Council will consider that such an amenity will justify the provision of a site in one of the city centre’s development areas. We are active in the Central Winchester Regeneration Consultation that is going on at the time of writing and are optimistic that the opportunities provided by cultural infrastructure have been recognised.
It is crucial to a successful project that it is sited in the City Centre rather than tucked away in a corner. The presence of a new music space would be beneficial to the City in a number of ways, apart from properly housing the smaller end of Winchester’s music making and providing scope for a significant growth in that activity. It would provide a regular and purposeful public venue available as such all year-round for a wide variety of activities. It would also provide an additional evening attraction to a city notably short of such amenities – the majority of Winchester’s attractions for residents and visitors are heritage-based and essentially operate during the day. It would contribute to Winchester’s ambition to change the profile of visitors from day-trippers to ‘short-stayers’, to the advantage of the City's economy. It would provide a base for musical activities currently missing at present - for example the provision of music for people impaired by age or infirmity – while complementing Hampshire’s admirable music programme for schools. This city is unusual. Whereas in most places the growth of a variety of restaurants, cafes, wine bars and the like follows the arrival of a concert hall, playhouse, art gallery or museum, in Winchester the catering outlets have come first. The opportunity is now there and the users of a new music space will provide new customers.
A decent music space will not be cheap, since it is only worth doing to a high standard. How is it to be achieved in a time of financial and political uncertainty? It is unlikely that significant funding will come from the public purse, since local authorities have been under the hammer of successive governments for so long that their traditional role of funding capital projects for the arts has faded. Lottery funds are sadly diminished since the glory days of the 1990’s. How then might it be funded? Money is still available from private, corporate and charitable sources given a sufficiently compelling case in a highly competitive field. So the project’s business plan will have to be as self-sustaining as possible and will need to be absolutely central to defining the brief for the building. All these issues were explored in our 2015 report to Winchester City Council.
ln an ideal world such a project would be promoted by an existing organisation and preferably one that has a successful record in procuring buildings - education institutions have often led the way (the Saffron Hall in Saffron Walden and Cedars Hall in Wells being cases in point). Since there is not an obvious institution in Winchester it will be necessary to establish one for the purpose - so how might it happen? Someone will need to articulate the project in greater detail, find a public figure as sponsor, form a committee, found a charitable vehicle, appoint trustees, set up an organisation, appoint a project manager, raise some seed money, recruit the appropriate professional team, design the building, conceive and execute a fundraising programme and build. None of this will be easy and it will take time, probably ten years at least. But other cities do it, so why not Winchester?
Winchester City Council is the key to getting the project under way. If, as a result of the Central Winchester Regeneration Consultation, it were to allocate a site to the project and grant an option to the embryonic charitable organisation outlined above to purchase a lease, the process could begin. The Council’s confidence would be a crucial factor in giving the project substance which would be likely to stimulate the community to put its full weight behind it an absolute prerequisite for a successful outcome.