From THE GUARDIAN, May 28th, 1999

   The news that Kent Nagano is stepping down as music director of the
   Halle looked like another blow for the crisis-hit orchestra.  But
   Stephen Moss believes the worst is now over

     By Stephen Moss

   The Guardian's files on the Halle Orchestra are, not surprisingly,
   voluminous:  `Halle Orchestra visits Portugal', `Halle concert seats
   to be dearer' and `Halle will fly to Norway for tour' are all there
   in yellowing print from the 50s when the paper still proclaimed itself
   the `Manchester Guardian'.  In 1957 the paper even ran a three-part
   extract from CB Rees's One Hundred Years of the Halle, in which he
   celebrated the world-famous orchestra, its identification with the
   city of Manchester, and the genius of its conductor, Sir John
   Barbirolli, `the man whose name and fame are now inseparable from
   the Halle'.

   Such coverage is less comprehensive now, not least because flights
   to Norway are no longer the novelty they were.  But some things don't
   change:  the files are also full of rising deficits, grant cuts and
   funding crises.  There is a booklet from 1950 called The Future of
   the Halle Orchestra:  A Problem of Finance.  Even at the height of
   the Barbirolli era, the Halle had trouble making ends meet.

   Orchestral music is like that.  On stage these perfectly turned-out
   musicians play searing music that speaks to the soul, while inwardly
   they are fretting because they haven't been paid for months and have
   a rehearsal at 9am tomorrow in a draughty hall on the other side of
   town.  Funding cuts and the crisis in the recording industry have
   made the 90s painful for orchestras, and particularly for the Halle,
   which two years ago was in danger of going out of business.

   So the story that appeared this week that music director Kent Nagano
   was stepping down from the podium looked like another chapter in the
   tale of a great orchestra's sad decline.  The implication was that
   Nagano felt frustrated artistically, that he wasn't sufficiently
   money-conscious, and that the Halle's debt was spiralling out of
   control.  The anecdote about staging Tosca but forgetting to budget
   for singers seemed to say it all.  The Halle, like the eponymous
   diva, seemed bent on suicide.  But Manchester's music lovers shouldn't
   despair quite yet, because for once there may be less to this crisis
   than meets the eye.

   Nagano is certainly stepping down, though the Halle's management
   insists the parting is less acrimonious than was reported.  Nagano
   has never quite won over the Manchester faithful, some of the Halle's
   activities have underperformed commercially, and that catch-all phrase
   `by mutual agreement" always produces suspicion.  But he has been
   there for seven years, had reached the end of the two-year extension
   of his original contract, and had increasing commitments overseas.
   Clearly, the Halle wanted to start again with a music director able
   to offer more time and who the city might take to its heart in the
   way it did with Barbirolli.

   `There is no question of Kent being the fall guy,' says chief executive
   Leslie Robinson, who is himself stepping down after two years of
   crisis management.  He says that Nagano, who as befits a jet- setting
   musical superstar was en route to California yesterday, recognised
   that the weight of other commitments made it impossible for him to
   continue.

   Robinson goes on to spell out what they want from the new music
   director:  `We need someone who can relate to the musical interests
   of the city.  The Halle and Manchester are synonymous and the music
   director needs to underline that.  We also need someone who is hungry
   to have a symphony orchestra.'

   Don't bother putting your application in the post, because Nagano's
   successor has already been decided and will be formally announced
   on 7 June.  The smart money is on Mark Elder, music director during
   English National Opera's glory days, who has been looking for a new
   home since he left the Coliseum in 1993.  He's a Brit, for a start,
   and while determined not to look parochial, the Halle clearly want
   a conductor who will put down roots in the city.

   It is a bathetic end for Nagano, a Japanese-American from the West
   Coast, who came to Manchester amid loud fanfares in 1992.  He was
   billed as the man who would rescue the Halle from the musical mediocrity
   that had followed Barbirolli's death in 1970, a period in which Simon
   Rattle's achievements in Birmingham had exposed the limitations of
   Britain's oldest professional symphony orchestra.  Nagano came with
   a huge reputation and ambitious plans - his opening concert included
   a Messiaen premiere and a piece by John Adams.  Audiences who had
   grown used to a diet of Brahms and Bruckner knew they were in for an
   interesting ride.

   Audience levels held up well and improved after the opening of the
   Bridgewater Hall in 1996, but costs were spiralling out of control,
   and the management were criticised for not raising ticket prices
   after the move to the 42,000,000-pound hall.  In 1997 there was a
   complete breakdown in management - for an eight-month period the
   orchestra had no chief executive - and the Halle came within a whisker
   of collapse.  A report by management consultants KPMG declared it
   bankrupt and in one desperate move it was forced to sell a 17th-century
   violin and two Steinways to raise 200,000 pounds.

   Nagano took some flak for his ambitious programming and recording
   plans, but the real blame lay elsewhere - with the managers who failed
   to curb the deficit.  Nagano, after all, had been hired with a brief
   to restore the musical reputation of the Halle and to make sure that
   the move to the new hall marked a fresh beginning.  He was not employed
   as a bookkeeper.

   As soon as Robinson moved in in February 1998, it was apparent that
   what the Halle wanted from a music director had changed.  No one
   doubted Nagano's commitment to the orchestra or the city - `I shouted
   as loudly as anyone when Manchester United won the Premiership', he
   was reported as saying this week - but it was a two-months-a-year
   commitment, and for an orchestra in a pit that wasn't enough.

   The extension to Nagano's contract was a compromise designed to get
   the orchestra through the initial crisis period.  Robinson's task
   was to stabilise the situation and he sought Nagano's help in that,
   but it was clear from the beginning that he believed a different sort
   of music chief was needed and that Nagano's contract would not be
   renewed.

   The new music director will be confirmed as Robinson himself makes
   way for a new chief executive, John Summers, who for the past 10
   years has been running the Northern Symphonia in Newcastle.  Robinson
   says his job was always intended as a short-term one and that Summers
   will bring a `clearer artistic vision' to the Halle, but there may
   be a tinge of regret that he has not been asked to build on the
   progress of the past two years.

   For, despite the doomsters, progress there has undoubtedly been.
   The deficit of 1,100,000 pounds (huge, considering the turnover is
   only 5,000,000 pounds has been halved; an appeal has raised pounds
   1.2 million; and the unwieldy board of 25 has been cut to 12.  Everyone
   accepts that the past two years have been painful - especially for
   the contract musicians, whose numbers have fallen from 98 to 80 -
   but marketing director Andy Ryans insists that the future is now
   brighter.

   `The situation, while not perfect, is far better than it was.  We
   said it would be a three-year plan and we have delivered what we said
   we would deliver.  We have enjoyed the loyal support of our audience
   and are averaging 77-78 per cent attendances; and our appeal target
   of 3,000,000 pounds over four years is well on the way to being met.'

   Ryans does not rule out the possibility of a laureate role for Nagano:
   `Kent is enormously attached to the Halle.  He says it is his favourite
   orchestra and what he has done here has been of the highest standard.
   I don't think it will be the last time we see him on a Halle platform.'

   The revolving door of senior management has spun wildly at the Halle
   in the 90s, and many of Summers' friends can't understand why he is
   leaving the stability of the Symphonia for the mayhem of Manchester.
   He has been with the Symphonia since 1981, where he joined as a
   cellist but switched to management.  A disarming 46-year-old, he
   exudes enthusiasm for the job that now faces him.

   `I feel I've achieved all I can here.  It was time to move on.  I've
   always wanted to work for the Halle, which is probably the best-known
   name in British orchestral life.  We have to rid it of its debt
   burden, but the major challenge is to articulate the vision of a
   bright, forward-looking organisation.

   `The orchestra has a marvellous constituency and the job of turning
   it round is very possible.  The orchestra is playing as well as ever,
   but a financial crisis tends to make people lose confidence.  My job
   is to instil new confidence.  The hardest thing for an artistic
   organisation when its back is to the wall is to think ahead.  I have
   to be the one who is thinking not about today or tomorrow but the
   next five or 10 years.'

   An orchestra with a glorious past may finally be ready to confront
   the future.

Tony Duggan
Staffordshire,
United Kingdom.