Splendor Amsterdam’s Vision for a Sustainable Music Space

By Deirdre Morgan

In a time when the social media feeds of Vancouver musicians are rife with posts from peers leaving the city to move to Vancouver Island or the Sunshine Coast in pursuit of affordable living, those left behind are faced with the narrative that Vancouver is becoming a cultural ghost town. To counter this dystopian vision and offer potential frameworks for supporting musicians who choose to stay in the city, VIM House hosted two discussions—at Gold Saucer Studio and at Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre at SFU Woodwards—in July 2018 with David Dramm, Anne La Berge and Norman van Dartel of Splendor, an artist-driven music space in Amsterdam. The three speakers provided tantalizing glimpses of collective effort and self-sufficiency, offering plenty to consider for a Vancouver music scene struggling to find its place.

The focus of the discussions was the importance of space in establishing a successful independent music venue. Splendor is located in a renovated 1920s bathhouse in the centre of Amsterdam, a few blocks from the Dutch National Opera house. The idea is that musicians have a clubhouse-like laboratory for making new things that also doubles as a performance space. The venture emerged in reaction to the increasingly institutionalized music scene in Amsterdam, where waiting times of over a year to get a concert date drove artists to look for alternatives. Founding members, led by Radio Philharmonic Orchestra bassist Wilmar de Visser, created a wish list for the venue they wanted to create: a space for musicians to present, record, practice, broadcast, and hang out, with no grants or programming, bookable anytime and representing the full spectrum of the local music scene. Their philosophy centered on financial independence for the venue, creative freedom for the artists, and flexible, short-term planning and programming.

From this planning and effort sprung Splendor, with a surprisingly straightforward business model: 50 musicians each produce one concert per year; subscribers get access to all 50 concerts for €100. In exchange for this free show, and an annual concert where all 50 musicians form a large orchestra together, musicians get access to the building 365 days a year. Member musicians are free to produce more than one concert per season; some use the space to put on five or six events each year. The booking system operates on a first-come, first-served basis and the venue now hosts over 200 shows each year. Additional tickets are sold to the public at affordable prices set by the artists. Splendor’s value to musicians is the space and community it provides, and to concertgoers the value is the quality of musicians they can hear and see.

The key to the space is its diversity and flexibility; there might be a pop music gig with €5 tickets and beer one night, a classical concert the next evening, and a multimedia show the next. There is a large hall (100 seats), a small hall (30 seats), a bar, and a “chill lounge” on the upper floor for meetings and rehearsals. There are no stages or backstage dressing rooms; musicians perform on the same level as their audiences, who sit in stackable chairs, and everyone enters through the same door. The atmosphere is informal, with musicians pitching in to set up their concerts and mingling at the bar after the show. The welcoming atmosphere, where attendees can sip a glass of beer or wine while listening to a performance and socialize with the artists afterwards, is particularly refreshing for some of the orchestral musicians and their audiences, who shed their usual anonymity in the intimate setting.

According to van Dartel, Splendor currently has approximately 1120 subscribers (ranging widely in age) who account for over a quarter of its income. The rest of the money comes in nearly equal parts from extra concerts, bar sales, rentals, and sponsors and donations. Revenues, usually small, are passed on to musicians for their concerts, depending on ticket prices and units sold; but financial profit is not a central motivation for member artists. “This is not about making money,” La Berge emphasized. Instead, it is about making a vibrant, participatory scene where collaborations emerge from coffee breaks in the lounge, resulting in spontaneous cross-pollination of genres and styles. The objective is not to provide a living wage for musicians but to provide them with the freedom to develop their careers.

All 50 musician members are also bondholders, which means they pay a one-time refundable fee of €1000 to access the space. The first 50 members came from the personal address book of Wilmar de Visser and in its five years of operating there has never been a shortage of interest. There is no formal application process; the screening and selection of new members is undertaken by a committee. Selection comes down to who is the best and most interesting fit with the current roster, with a handful of spots reserved for young, emerging artists. Thus far, Splendor has done well with gender diversity among its members; La Berge said the membership committee’s current focus is on increasing engagement with local immigrant and minority musicians.

Membership diversity is key to creative resilience. The Splendor model does not seek to erase discord or friction; on the contrary, collaboration thrives in unlikely combinations, like the trio formed by jazz clarinetist Maarten Ornstein, Baroque theorbo player Mike Fentross and Arabic singer Rima Khcheich. Other successes include an evening of French chanson with wine and cheese, a “Future Orchestra” that focuses on improvisation and composition skills for children, and “Concert Karaoke,” an event where amateur musicians play with leading classical artists. Splendor’s eclectic offerings are fundamental to its ecosystem: concertgoers get access to genre-defying presentations and exposure to new artists, while musicians expand their networks and reach new audiences. As Splendor’s online reviews attest, the venue attracts people who are willing to be surprised by inventive presentations, at a reasonable price.

Two mainstays of the traditional arts model are conspicuously absent: marketing and programming. Instead, Splendor outsources these duties to the members, who program shows, write concert blurbs and galvanize their own audiences. For this model to work, members—save for the few emerging ones—need to be established artists who have already developed an audience, an approach that has allowed Splendor to compile each members’ mailing list into a master list of around 7,000 people. The pooling and sharing of resources is paramount to the operation and there is no marketing budget for individual concerts. For this reason, the presenters highlighted the importance of having the 50 musicians represent a wide spectrum of the music scene, explaining how a monoculture from a single genre would pit members against each other for the same public.

Despite the success it has achieved in its first few years, Splendor has not entirely escaped the near-universal precarity faced by arts organizations. The building is currently on a five-year lease from the city and the organization hopes to buy it eventually for greater stability. The group also faced a financial crisis two years ago, which it survived by requiring all 50 members to bring in three new subscribers each—or pay €300 instead. This is a reminder that no creative venture is immune to the vagaries of social, economic and political conditions. At Splendor, musicians’ needs come first, but musicians also shoulder greater responsibility for the outcome of their programming, marketing and creative risks. As with any collective venture, sometimes sacrifices have to be made. For members who are deeply invested in the vision, the benefits seem to outweigh the costs.

Relationships and engagement with the local neighbourhood are paramount. Splendor has an agreement with a synagogue down the road for when a bigger space is needed to accommodate large-scale productions. For its fifth anniversary, Splendor put on a series of concerts in spaces around the vicinity: in people’s living rooms, on canal boats and on an industrial site across the street. La Berge highlighted the importance of the building and location, explaining “it has to be a place that people love to be,” citing the architectural charm of the bathhouse and the intimacy of its spaces as important features. She also highlighted the importance of having the space in a central, accessible location in the city and ensuring membership is drawn from the local area.

A DIY ethos permeated the talks, backed by an awareness that utopian communities are not always capable of long-term survival. La Berge spoke candidly about the importance of diverse social makeup and a sense of buy in from members, describing her experience running a now-defunct art squat for several years. When asked to comment on the social integration of Splendor’s many diverse members and whether everyone gets along, La Berge replied, “We get along with the building.” In other words, members whose primary allegiance is to the spirit of participation, personal investment and collaboration form the backbone of the organization.

Splendor’s founding artists gave themselves permission to envision something radical: they identified their community’s needs and imagined ways they could be met at a cost that was reasonable to all stakeholders. The venture shows that artists are willing to pay to have a place where they can hone their craft, develop their career, expand their network, and make meaningful creative and personal connections—and that audiences are willing to support them.

With these talks Dramm, La Berge and van Dartel contributed a thought-provoking addition to sustainable music discourse and a reminder that it is precisely in periods of struggle that artists must stay and act. With the City of Vancouver’s recent announcement that the former Plaza of Nations site will be dedicated to a permanent music centre, we can only hope that these insights will inform the development of a space that serves the needs of Vancouver’s musicians.

Deirdre Morgan is an ethnomusicologist and performer whose research focusses on music revival and transnational music communities. She currently lectures in Music at Simon Fraser University and Vancouver Community College and worked for several years as an administrator in the Vancouver music scene. www.deirdremorgan.com