An orchestra to call your own

YOU still have two days to buy the Beethoven Academie. This is not a joke. The Belgian chamber orchestra decided to put itself up for sale on EBay after learning that Flemish Cultural Minister Bert Anciaux was not renewing its government funding for the next three years.

“As we cannot survive without any subsidy we are forced to sell the orchestra to the highest bidder,” the group writes on EBay.

The orchestra had planned 17 productions next season, including a collaboration with the Royal Ballet of Flanders and concerts with cellist Natalia Gutman. All these projects are doomed, it says, unless someone with deep pockets comes to the rescue.

The Beethoven Academie was founded in 1993 in the Flemish city of Mechelen by conductor Jan Caeyers, who modeled its form on that of the ensemble for which Beethoven wrote his “Eroica” Symphony. The current conductor, Herve Niquet, took over in 2004.

As of midweek Central European Summer Time, there were 79 bids for the 40-member group. The highest was approximately $10,000. The bidding is scheduled to end Tuesday.

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Chris Pasles