Threats to Cardiff Culture

Cardiff City Council has to find an extra £50m worth of savings in its budget this year. All eyes have inevitably turned to its cultural expenditure, namely the New Theatre and St David's Hall, as well as the city's youth centres and play schemes. While the New Theatre remains a viable commercial concern for any buyer, with many smaller touring productions using the venue week by week – larger shows now go to the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay – St David's Hall is the city's only major concert hall. True, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales has its own home in the bay, but the Alan Hoddinott Hall, which opened in 2009, seats only 350 and is predominantly used as a recording and rehearsal venue (replacing the old BBC Llandaff facilities). BBC NOW continues to play at St David's Hall, which has a capacity of 2000.

The Hall, built in 1982, is far from being a perfect venue, cramped as it is onto a small city centre site. The roof has been leaking and the public spaces are outdated, yet the hall itself is a good performance space and one in which, on a personal note, I performed as a boy in performances of Berlioz, Britten, Mahler and Orff, and where I heard the Berg Violin Concerto, Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony and Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht for the first time. The present government's pursuit of austerity – always considering the cost but never the value – is clearly having grave consequences on councils such as Cardiff and their ability to provide culture in an already sparse Welsh arena. Savings may need to be made, but the closure of services such as St David's Hall could prove irrevocable. Click here for more information.

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