LETTERS: Please keep the music playing

Over a number of years I have attended innumerable top-quality concerts in Dewsbury, including many at the town hall where highly accomplished musicians of the calibre of guitarist Craig Ogden, pianist Ian Buckle, and the Erringden piano trio, to mention but a few, have thrilled local people as well as those like myself prepared to travel some miles to enjoy the musical delights that Dewsbury regularly has to offer.

For me, and I am sure countless others, Dewsbury as a musical venue has long been synonymous with superb musical performance, much of which has captivated and uplifted audiences at lunchtime concerts.

It is a regrettable fact of life that when councils seek to trim budgets, community arts and concert grants are an easy target for reduction.

The powers that be should remember however, that in making economies to the detriment of the arts in general and music in particular, they may well be strengthening their balance sheets but they are impoverishing the spirit of the communities they were elected to serve.

Robert Cowan

Mountbatten Avenue, Sandal