Re: Lebrecht

In a Nov. 8 column called A walk on the web side, Norman Lebrecht described me as "a suit once hired by the Arts Council to abolish London orchestras." Though indeed it is true that I often wear suits, I think it is important to set the record straight on the matter of the Arts Council.

In 1993, I served on the Hoffman Commission that the Arts Council in London assembled, with a mandate for that Commission to recommend which one London orchestra in addition to the London Symphony should continue to receive Arts Council funding and which two orchestras should no longer be funded.

Let me first clarify that I was not "hired." My expenses were paid and, if I remember correctly, I received a small symbolic honorarium. More importantly, as the other four members of Judge Hoffman's Commission could verify for Mr. Lebrecht, I took a leadership position in assembling the 3-2 vote that refused to comply with the mandate, and which concluded that none of the orchestras were sufficiently inferior to the others to merit the loss of Arts Council funds.