Deputies allege ‘illegalities’ at State Orchestra

By Melina Demetriou

THE HOUSE Education Committee yesterday asked the Education Ministry to investigate allegations of misdemeanor at the Cyprus State Orchestra and to come up with a legal framework under which it will operate.

The Committee charged that the State Orchestra was run by foreigners, some of whom allegedly had an agenda against Cypriot musicians.

Talking to the Cyprus Mailafter the meeting yesterday, Education Committee chairman Prodromos Prodromou of DISY said: “There are no regulations governing the orchestra’s operation.

“That’s why all sorts of illegalities occur,” he charged.

He said that the Committee had asked the Education Ministry to investigate allegations of illegalities in the State Orchestra and to come up with a legal framework in six months’ time to govern its operations.

Prodromou said deputies had received several complaints that senior foreign members of the orchestra routinely rejected Cypriot musicians auditioning to join.

“They want to run the orchestra and they want no interference from anyone,” Prodromou alleged.

The Committee chairman charged that one foreign musician “used the orchestra to make a solo CD. He has also illegally performed in the occupied areas.”

Prodromou claimed that decision-making bodies at auditions were sometimes “unfit to take such decisions”.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.