Our Sustainable Travel Policy
We are excited to announce our new flight-free European travel policy - from now on, Fretwork will travel by electric car and train on the continent, in a bid to lower our carbon footprint and in acknowledgment of the changes that the music business needs to make in the face of the climate and ecological crisis.
As we release this news, we’re currently on a tour to France and Spain, having travelled by electric car to Amiens, where we gave a concert in the beautiful Chateau Suzanne, and then onwards to Madrid by train. Last month we toured Germany by electric car, giving concerts in Bremen, Schloß Seehaus, Ohrdruf and Eisenach. Travelling over ground and at a slower pace has brought many benefits - we have been able to visit places that would not have been practical to get to if we were flying, and the pace of travel has allowed for much more meaningful engagement with the people we meet along the way. A highlight was our stay in Bremen, where we gave a concert of Bach keyboard arrangements but also taught for a day in the Hochschule and stayed with Hille Perl in her wonderful rural retreat.
It’s time for everyone in classical music to reassess what we’re trying to achieve - what does a successful tour look like, and how do we weigh up the financial, environmental, social and emotional costs and benefits of our work? We cannot keep our heads in the sand and pretend that business as usual can continue when every day the news brings stories of suffering caused by climate breakdown, and while the IPCC issues stronger and stronger warnings about the likelihood of us experiencing irreversible and catastrophic global heating.
Of course it’s very difficult to be thinking about changing our ways of working when we’re just emerging from the devastating effects of the pandemic, and still reeling from the difficulties which Brexit has brought to the arts. Despite the challenging situation we are in though, there is still a need to address the fact that the classical music business currently relies on patterns of activity that are completely unsustainable. Frequent short haul flying is one of the activities that needs to end if we have any chance of reaching net zero by 2050, and our failure to meet those targets will have a direct impact not only on future generations but also on people, mostly in the global south, who are at the front line of climate breakdown today. People are suffering now, and it can’t be right that success in the music business is built on that suffering.
Let’s challenge the received wisdom which rates a group’s worth on how many concerts in multiple continents it can rack up. Let’s instead use our collective abundance of imagination and creativity to find a more sustainable, positive and kinder way of being musicians.