Tomorrow’s entrepreneurs must understand culture if they are to be effective influencers. Or using softpower to persuade others.
Below is a message from the entrepreneur and conductor/producer Raymond Janssen and known to many DRN members. And where the DRN awarded the Romanian Business Award years ago for the way he has shaped cultural entrepreneurship.
The DRN editors refer to Churchill as a leader of hard power with a soft power underbelly. With his image, his writing and his rhetoric, the great warlord and leader was as much an overeater as a fighter. Churchill made soft power sing … he made soft power work.’
Arts and culture are invaluable to a society. For any society! In times of prosperity and prosperity but certainly also during crises! When the cabinet of Winston Churchill, British prime minister during World War II, proposed to free up extra money for the war by cutting back on arts and culture, Churchill is reported to have said, “But then what are we fighting for?
Soft power has always been important to foreign policy. But this is more true than ever in today’s globalized, digital age, where mass communication has greatly expanded the ability of artists, writers and other leaders to interact with millions of people around the world. With the power to exert influence spreading from elites and more interactions taking place on a person-to-person level, the ability of individuals to influence culture and of culture to influence individuals has never been greater. As Churchill prophetically put it in 1943, “The empires of the future are empires of the mind.
The arts are ideally suited to connect with large global audiences and influence people on a deep emotional level. Increasingly, they do so beyond the reach of political elites. Indeed, attempts by politicians throughout history to use the arts instrumentally have tended to fail. It is the nature of cultural connections that they are incremental and of artistic responses that they are indirect. Countries that seek to control their creative output are often seen as indulging in cultural bragging or propaganda. Those who support their creative output from a distance acquire greater international influence through the resulting soft power.
Conductor Raymond Janssen’s mission is to bring Eastern Europe and Western Europe closer together. The rich tradition from Eastern European countries can be heard and felt, and everyone should know that! This time he has focused on Ukraine a country at War can certainly use support in the field of culture and also has a lot to offer (see the program at https://cadenza-productions.nl/. He also managed to contract the world-famous Romanian tenor REMUS ALĂZĂROAE who celebrated triumphs at the Puccini Year in Korea last year. However, he is concerned about the decline of the cultural sector in Romania the country with which he has maintained contacts for 12 years and where he received an award from the President of Romania from the hands of the Romanian ambassador during a performance at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. The DRN hopes and trusts that the negative trend in Romania will turn for the better!
We encourage you to reserve tickets through the website (mentioned above) as the tour will take place from March 13-23!