Posted on 09/13/2006 9:57:26 AM PDT by presidio9
For more than 30 years, Ralph Kirshbaum bought two airline tickets for his trips. The world-renowned American musician, who lives in England, bought one seat for himself, and the other for his strong, silent companion - a priceless 250-year-old Montagnana cello.
But British authorities say Mr. Kirshbaum must now sit alone. Since police broke up an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic flights last month, restrictions have been placed on travelers: Nothing larger than a laptop bag can be carried into airplane cabins. But cellists, violinists, and French horn players are loath to consign their instruments, often antiquities worth millions of dollars, to cavalier baggage handlers and the rough-and-tumble conditions of the aircraft hold.
As a result, hundreds of musicians in Britain are complaining that the measures designed to thwart terrorists are in fact punishing virtuosos with nothing more malicious in mind than a Saint-Saëns solo.
The performers, who shuttle around the world to concerts, rehearsals, and festivals with ancient instruments in tow, are warning that their performances - and even livelihoods - are in jeopardy because the new rules make international travel almost impossible.
"The kind of international movement that musicians have come to rely upon and audiences have come to expect will be altered dramatically," says Kirshbaum. "If these policies are kept in place for any significant length of time, artists will rethink how frequently, if at all, they are going to make trips to Britain. There is enough stress and pressure in preparing properly for concerts to then have to add hours of needless travel on top."
Checking their instruments, often priceless, into the cargo hold isn't an option for most top musicians.
"Something like one in eight instruments gets damaged - no matter how much they assure [that the instruments will] be taken care of, they are very likely to get smashed," says British cellist Steven Isserlis, who travels with a 276-year-old Stradivarius instrument. "It's irreplaceable," he adds. "It's my responsibility to pass it on to the next generation."
The rules have resulted in some distinctly odd itineraries, as musicians resort to road and rail to get from A to B. Mr. Isserlis, for example, has already endured a 10-hour journey by train to Germany for a rehearsal instead of a simple one-hour flight. Kirshbaum says a quick hop to a festival in Italy this week turned into a 24-hour ordeal on Europe's rail network.
Many are finding that the only way to travel with their instruments is to take the three-hour Eurostar train to Paris and fly on from there. "A lot of British musicians work abroad," says Keith Ames of Britain's Musicians Union, which has been arguing over the restrictions with transport officials and intends to lobby Parliament about them. "If they can't take an instrument with them, how are they supposed to play? You can't ask them to borrow: That's like saying to Tiger Woods, 'Can you just borrow a set of clubs when you get there?' "
Mr. Ames says that the situation has become so bad that some appearances abroad are already in jeopardy, threatening cancellations, lawsuits, and insurance rows.
Already, the New York-based Orchestra of St Luke's has cancelled a tour of Britain. And the issue burst into the open on Saturday night when the conductor Mark Elder used the high-profile Last Night of the Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall to plead for an end to the "unfair" restrictions. "Otherwise," he added "it seems to me that next year we should all look forward to Concerto for Laptop and Orchestra."
British officials say there is little they can do for musicians given the tight restrictions in place. One government official noted that musicians are not the only professionals affected: photographers, camera crews, and even lab technicians are finding it hard to live with the new rules. The government says it is consulting with airlines and airports to see if the restrictions can be modified or relaxed in the near future.
Musicians are not arguing that art should take precedence over security. But they are insisting on a special dispensation for those traveling with instruments that they argue are scannable and contain no internal working parts. Laptops, by contrast, would be more easily adapted to a terrorist's needs, argues Ames. "The idea that some bloke with a cello is a terrorist is laughable. Any terrorist would be more subtle than that," he says.
Kirshbaum says that the restrictions are not so much about enhanced security as about ensuring that staff are not overwhelmed by passengers with awkward baggage. "I was told it was not specifically a security issue; it was an issue of the volume of work that was put on the people manning the machines in the central search area. They were trying to minimize that."
But the outcome, he says, has been an enormous imposition on "the largest body of cultural ambassadors representing Britain." "We are flying the flag for Britain and they are putting shackles on us."
He says it is unthinkable to expect top musicians to travel without their instruments and beg or borrow replacements at their destination. "Our instrument is our voice," he says. "We spend hours every day living with, relating to, getting to know our instrument so that when we go on stage we are in the best possible position to give the best possible performance."
Isserlis, who has planned trips to New York and Japan in the fall, says it is audiences and culture in general that will suffer. "[Instruments are] much less dangerous than laptops and duty-free bottles of highly flammable liquids [such as liquor and perfume], but because they [airport authorities] make money out of that they'll never crack down on it," he says. "It's a threat to our livelihood and a threat to culture."
I bet there is a market for better packing, shipping and handling devices for specialty goods.
Keep in mind the hold is also pressurized, just like the cabin.
Lucky you -- I just flew back from Brussels right before Labor Day and had to quickly repack my luggage after discovering I was allowed to bring a book and my travel documents on the 9-hour flight...
I guess we won't see any Queen/Brian May performances in the US any time soon, unless Brian May feels like ponying up for a charter flight. His hand-made electric guitar (aka Red Special) is one-of-a-kind priceless, and always rides in a seat next to him on airplanes. Stupid terrorists...
I think it's pretty hard to find a horn for much more than 10K, even the custom made ones. My son plays a slightly used Carl Hill and his wife plays a brand new Schmidt and each cost around 10K (maybe a bit more than that), as I recall. And both of them would be replaceable (although in the case of the Hill, it might take some time). Contrary to stringed and some wind (esp. Heckel bassoons) instruments which have appreciated over time and are not replaceable, I believe brass instruments tend to deteriorate with use.
My son and wife are fanatical about their mouthpieces, though. Sometimes I think they'd rather have to replace their horn than their mouthpiece--LOL.
Even so, they would NEVER check their horn while flying.
I hate traveling with my bass guitar, though since I bought an ATA rated case, I've never had a problem with by bass getting destroyed. TWA did manage to destroy a brand new custom Rickenbacker bass I had back in 1980, but they did pay for it, and I was able to replace it with a used Carl Thompson bass, which it turns out I liked even better than the Rick. Since then, I've used a $400 ATA case (plywood and fiberglass, with metal edging), for a combined weight of about 50 pounds!
But I'm still nervous about it... The last time I found footprints on the case. There were tiretracks on the Rickenbacker case: Someone had driven a tractor over the case, snapping the neck in two, and breaking the case.
The Rick was replacble. The Carl Thompson is a 30 year old, one of a kind. But it's nothing compared to some of the classical instruments they're talking about. They simply can never be replaced, and often when repaired never sound the same.
Mark
Re: Conn 8D's. Certain old ones have increased in value. I believe they were the ones made in Elkhart, Indiana in the 50's. If you google around a bit, you can probably find the serial numbers of the ones that are valuable. Even so, there aren't as many professional hornists that play Conns as there used to be. There are a few big name symphonies whose horn sections all use Conns, but they used to be the industry standard.
Perhaps it's because there are more and more women in the horn sections of professional orchestras now and, as I understand it, women (unless they are big women) usually do not have the breath to play a Conn and favor smaller horns. Or else it could be that a lighter horn sound, but one that still projects, is now in vogue. Or a combination of each.
I am a musician, but have never played the horn -- I just pick up a lot of information from my son and wife, who both play horn professionally. My son's first two horns were Conns and he liked them, but he's a big guy. He was told that he won't go anywhere in auditions with his Conn, because it's not the desired horn sound for today. That's when he went to the Carl Hill.
It depends on the sort of baggage compartments the plane has. If the compartment is unpressurized, it can destroy an ancient acoustic instrument, which has hundreds of years old varnish and very thin wood, which a very low humidity and low temperatures can crack.
I don't know if some are still unpressurized, but back when I used to travel with my bass guitar, you needed to loosen the strings because the compartments were unpressurized and cold, and the cold could contract the strings, warping the neck. I don't know if a hermetically sealed instument case is possible.
Mark
Seems like the music industry could get together and design some shipping containers that would have a very good chance of making through air freight (I'd not check them either) without damage. It's hardly rocket science.
You don't want to check something that valuable in a case, you want to ship it in a custom shipping container. Insured of course. (Not that the money is compensation for a truly irreplaceable instrument.
However I'd think that the instruments would also be at some risk in the passenger compartment. A drunk could fall on it trying to make it to the latrine, to cite just one hazard. Or someone could bump the musician at the top of the stairs and it could fall to the tarmac.
Now you could work some tobacco into it, it would be the ATF standard. :)
Do you know how much room there is on a ship compared to an aircraft? Heck they could hide a well shielded nuke on one of those, and blow up a whole port instead of just an airplane, or even a building.
Of course it is. Raises the cost somewhat though. TANSTAAFL!
"Sail by the sea!"
Achille Lauro.
This is where profiling MUST come into play. No doubt these pro musicians are frequent flyers with YEARS of flying history. You'd think there was a way to ID them as such and give them an opportunity to lug their instruments as their seat passengers, for pete's sake.
We have catalogs at home with instruments, bows and cases. The top end of each can be EXTREMELY pricey.
My wife has worked around violins alot and I cannot imagine buying a bow worth $15K for a high school student.
If you want to defend it as the government showing us who are the masters, and putting on a meaningless puppit show, I'll agree and, again, make no more comment. But it is unarguably stupid. And no, 9/11 and being at war do not justify everything the government can think of to do.
Looks as if this discussion will become academic as early as next week:
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1872090,00.html
[British musicians welcome relaxation of baggage restrictions]
This story made the general news headlines last Saturday when Mark Elder made a big issue of it in his speech at the Last Night of the Proms. Extraordinary (and in some ways reassuring) that a traditional cultural institution can still have an effect on public policy.
I would worry more about theft than damage.
It's more polite to tell the airline you are worried about damage than theft.
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