Culture in Birmingham

I am looking forward to attending Sir Albert Bore's Cultural Conference at the University of Birmingham's new performance centre the Bramall Building on Thursday and Friday this week, 18th - 19th October.

My background is in inward investment, having worked for Birmingham City Council's former Inward Investment and Business Promotion Agency: Locate in Birmingham for 16 years from October 1994 until September 2010.

I am now working as an inward investment and 'Green' business consultant for my own company: Greensward Enterprise Ltd.

Marketing Birmingham and its CEO Neil Rami took over the inward investment and business promotion portfolio in 2010 as part of the new inward investment initiative: 'Business Birmingham' under the direction of Wouter Schuitemaker.

During my 16 years working in inward investment and business promotion for Locate in Birmingham I project managed the relocation of the Elmhurst School for Dance from Camberley in Surrey to the Calthorpe Estate's former Edgbaston College site next to Priory Hospital on Bristol Road, Edgbaston in Birmingham.

I worked closely with Birmingham Royal Ballet Director David Bintley to bring Elmhurst School for Dance to Birmingham as the 'feeder' ballet school for BRB.

David and I did joint presentations to the then Arts Minister and former Labour MP for Yardley in Birmingham, Estelle Morris MP in order to convince the then Blair Government to support Birmingham's bid to bring Elmhurst to Birmingham as a beacon school for ballet and performing arts in the City of Birmingham.

We also made representations to Dance England and Dance Xchange in order to access Arts Council grants for ballet and dance in order to help fund the Elmhurst relocation and the development of the site and buildings which included state-of-the-art performance facilities including a theatre and dance studios.

The original enquiry from Elmhurst was received by me way back in 2000 when Paul Spooner was Director of Planning and Economic Development.

I project managed Elmhurst's relocation working closely with Canon Robert Crossley who led the Elmhurst team along with sterling support from Robert McNamara, originally from the city of Birmingham and the first Principal of the new Birmingham-based Elmhurst School for Dance.

I project managed the Elmhurst relocation for a number of years and by October 2004, the brand new Birmingham-based Elmhurst School for Dance was on site and operating from a brand new ballet, dance and performing arts school in Edgbaston in Birmingham.

Elmhurst provides a 'conyeyor-belt' of talented ballet school graduates for the Birmingham Royal Ballet with its burgeoning reputation under Director David Bintley as one of the foremost ballet companies in the UK.

I feel a sense of pride whenever I drive past the white-washed walls of Elmhurst as I have given many, many Birmingham school children the opportunity of a first-class dance education in state-of-the-art facilities at a brand new school in Birmingham. 

In the past if a Birmingham child wished to get into one of the major Corps de Ballet, they would have to go to London to train at White Lodge, the Royal Ballet's School in Richmond Park or to schools such as Elmhurst then based in Camberley in leafy Surrey rather than train for a career in ballet in gritty, industrial Birmingham.

Birmingham was perceived by outsiders to have very little or no culture at all, whereas in reality with the CBSO, the BRB, The MAC, The Birmingham Rep, Birmingham Opera Company, The Barber Institute, BMAG, Artsfest, SAMPAD, The Drum, Stan's Cafe and other creative and cultural organisations too numerous to mention we are a city bursting with cultural talent and ambition

I would be happy to recount my Elmhurst experiences to Birmingham cultural conference delegates should you wish me to get involved in the conference......?

As an inward investment professional and former investment promotion agency business relationship manager with Locate in Birmingham with a special interest in cultural and heritage-related inward investment as it impacts on Birmingham and the West Midlands, I am particularly keen to attend this conference and put forward my ideas on how Birmingham's international cultural and inward investment offer can be improved.

I am especially looking forward to attending the workshops on Day 1 on our international position as it relates to cultural and heritage-related inward investment.

Birmingham needs to position itself carefully and correctly in order to garner maximum global inward investment related to culture and heritage. 

This was outlined by Professor Michael Parkinson of Liverpool John Moore's University some years ago in his Visioning Study for the Birmingham City Centre Masterplan produced when Clive Dutton was Director of Planning and Regeneration at Birmingham City Council. 

The major thrust of Professor Parkinson's argument was that Birmingham does not make the most of its cultural offer and its cultural and industrial heritage in leveraging in global inward investment to the city.

I am not sure that his ideas have been fully implemented as yet.....hopefully this conference will go some way to addressing those issues of under-achievement and a failure to make the most of what Birmingham has to offer culturally and from a historical and heritage standpoint......For example: why isn't more exposure and promotional use made of the legacy of those enlightened Birmingham-based 'Lunatiks'...'The Lunar Men' as author Jenny Uglow calls them in her book of the same name? 

Matthew Boulton and his protege and partner Scottish inventor and engineer James Watt developed the first efficient and practical steam engine, which they manufactured at The Soho Foundry and exported around the world. Without Boulton and Watt the Industrial Revolution would not have happened, not just in Birmingham but around the rest of Britain and the world.

That is how important these figures from Birmingham's past are in British and World History....why are we not making more of them and the fact that this all happened right here in Birmingham at Soho House and in the Soho Manufactory over two centuries ago?

The British Museum recently held an exhibition showing an exact replica of James Watt's workshop where he developed his revolutionary steam engine when he worked in Birmingham....why isn't that exhibition on permanent display somewhere in Birmingham? If London can do it, then why can't Birmingham, where it all actually happened.....?

I have some ideas as to how Birmingham can build on the Lunar Men's legacy in order to enhance our standing in global terms which I intend to outline at the Cultural Conference.

And as for how we can use 'The Hobbit', LOTR and J.R.R. Tolkien's legacy in using Birmingham landmarks like Sarehole Mill Moseley Bog and 'The Two Towers' in Edgbaston as his inspiration for some of the most popular books in the whole canon of English Literature, I have some ideas and observations on that opportunity for the city of Birmingham. 

The imminent launch of the first of the two new films of Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' puts that issue in the current spotlight. 

Hopefully 'The Hobbit' films will be as successful as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the Hollywood blockbusters realised by New Zealand-born Producer/Director Peter Jackson.

I am looking forward to the conference immensely and look forward to meeting you on Thursday in the fantastic new surroundings of the Bramall Building at The University of Birmingham.

The recently-completed Bramall Building and Elgar Concert Hall can only enhance the University of Birmingham and the City of Birmingham's cultural and heritage offer going forward.

It completes the original Edwardian plans envisaged for the 'Crescent of Learning' that Chancellor's Court and the campanile clock tower was to give an increasingly ambitious and confident city of Birmingham: the 'City of 1000 Trades' and home of Joseph Chamberlain, the Birmingham MP and former Colonial Secretary's 'Workshop of the World', manufacturing industrial goods for the growing British Empire.

Chancellor's Court and The Campanile: 'Old Joe' were built in tribute to the driving force behind the establishment of Mason College and The University of Birmingham in the early twentieth century, former Lord Mayor of Birmingham: Joseph Chamberlain. 

The magnificent sweep of the buildings in Chancellor's Court shows the ambition of the Edwardian City of Birmingham....an ambition we need to reinvigorate, revitalise and regain in the modern 21st century Birmingham......... a 'City of Culture', second to none....!