President Becomes Patron of the RTÉ NSO
President Michael D. Higgins
President Michael D. Higgins has been announced as the sole patrion of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. The President, a former minister for the arts, will assume the role immediately.
Séamus Crimmins, Executive Director of RTÉ Performing Groups, said, ‘The President’s passion for the arts is well known, admired and respected and his advocacy of inclusiveness and creativity in communities chimes well with the work of the RTÉ NSO. In the times ahead, the RTÉ NSO will, in the spirit of President Higgins’s inaugural speech, continue to support and celebrate creativity, resourcefulness and musical talent. It is with pride that the orchestra looks forward to its association with Michael D. Higgins as President of Ireland.’
Read an article Michael D. Higgins’ wrote for The Journal of Music in 2001 here. In ‘Surrendering without a Struggle: the Loss of the Public Space in the era of Globalisation’, he asks, ‘Is the future of culture to be an integrating force for tolerance of diversity, for the vindication of the freedom of the imagination, for enabling us to be at home in the world, or is it to be as an exotic ingredient in a material version of progress defined by consumption?’
Published on 22 March 2012
