THE National Symphony Orchestra should be removed immediately from RTE's control, the Merriman Summer School was told last night in Ennistymon, Co Clare.
Mr John Horgan, a member of the Provisions and Institutional Arrangements Now for Orchestras and Ensembles (PIANO), said that it was entirely inappropriate that the Government should continue to delegate the running of a cultural institution as important as the National Symphony Orchestra to any organisation whose primary purpose was not musical.
Mr Horgan, a former chairman of the Labour Court and now director of human resources at Analog Devices, was chairing a symposium on Music and Broadcasting in Ireland".
Urging the Government to implement the main recommendation of the PIANO review group's report, which was commissioned by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, Mr Horgan said that the National Symphony Orchestra should be independent of RTE and receive proper recognition.
The report had recommended that the orchestra should be established by law under an independent board consisting of representatives of the major stake holders in Irish symphonic music.
The programming of the recent tour by the orchestra in Hong Kong was further evidence of the need to place the National Symphony Orchestra in the care of the music establishment.
He said: "An opportunity to show-case the orchestra's excellence in the performance of the Irish and international repertoire was lost in a mish-mash of pops and film scores.
Mr Lilis O Laoire, the sean-nos and traditional singer from Donegal, told the summer school that the term "sean-nos" was not as ancient as popularly perceived, and had only come into the language in the recent past.
He said that in Galway, the much ornamented style of sean-nos singing had been taken to be the national style, and this was at the expense of sean-nos singers in Donegal, for instance, whose style was much less ornamented. The Galway style has been promoted as a national identity symbol, and this has discouraged singers in Donegal. The disparity still continues".
Mr O Laoire said that it was important that the sean-nos aficionados should embrace a broad spectrum and welcome many styles as part of the national culture. "I would love to see a more democratic approach, particularly at competition level - one that would include a parity of esteem for English-language singing of ballads as well as songs sung in the traditional style."
Mr Joe Jackson, a journalist and cultural commentator with Hot Press and The Irish Times, said that the showband era was the seedbed for the current wave of successes in Irish pop music.