Three weeks into his job as chief executive of the Arts Council of Wales, Nick Capaldi shares a coffee with Karen Price to chat about the challenges ahead of him
AS a professional pianist, Nick Capaldi would spend much time filling in application forms for funding.
Now he is the man responsible for handing the cash out.
Mr Capaldi has just taken over from Peter Tyndall as chief executive of the Arts Council of Wales.
While he has an extensive knowledge of working behind the scenes in the cultural industry – he was executive director of the Arts Council of England, South West – he also knows what it’s like to be a struggling performer, which he hopes will help him in his new job.
“When I was performing I used to write hundreds of funding applications to trusts and sponsors, some of whom responded positively and others not at all,” says Mr Capaldi, who trained at Chethams Music School in Manchester and the Royal College of Music.
“So I have a very keen appreciation of what it’s like to be on the other side of the fence, as a person who’s applying to a body like ours for funding.”
The father-of-two has only been in the job for three weeks but he has been out and about meeting the movers and shakers in Wales’ creative sector.
He’s also been sampling some of what Wales has to offer – and is impressed so far.
“It’s been a terrific first few weeks. I’ve met lots of interesting people,” says Mr Capaldi, who’s originally from Lichfield in the Midlands.
“I’m really appreciative of the warm welcome I get everywhere I go.
“In my first two weeks I managed to see Deep Cut at the Sherman (in Cardiff), Theatr Clwyd’s Memory, Welsh National Opera’s Otello and a concert at St Asaph Cathedral as part of the North Wales International Music Festival.
“It’s very important to me to find out what’s going on. All the things I’ve seen so far have been excellent.”
So why did he want the job as head of Wales’ Arts Council?
“I felt that having worked in the publicly-funded arts for nearly 20 years in England, I wanted a new challenge.
“I wanted something bigger in scope.
“I had a very strong feeling there was a vibrancy and energy about cultural activity in Wales. I’ve been barely able to open a newspaper or look at the television without seeing Welsh creativity – from Bryn Terfel on Last Night of the Proms to Only Men Aloud! on Last Choir Standing.”
Just recently, many arts organisations in Wales have received major investment, including the new Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales and the new English-language National Theatre of Wales, which is under construction.
Prior to Mr Capaldi’s arrival, the Welsh Assembly Government handed the Arts Council an extra pot of cash amounting to £4.5m, which is being shared among 22 “beacon” organisations in the next three years.
Despite the recent investments, Mr Capaldi realises that finances are generally tight.
“Although the organisations are doing excellent work, behind the scenes it’s an almost daily fight for financial survival.
“What they achieve with the resources we make available to them is quite remarkable.
“The big challenge is how can we support the excellent high quality arts activities and make them available to the largest possible audience and make them sustainable in the longer term.”
Mr Capaldi says it’s too early to tell if the credit crunch is turning people away from concert halls, theatres and galleries.
“The turmoil in the international financial markets is still being worked through. What we can expect is that people’s disposable income will be diminished.
“There’s additional pressures on public finances as a result of rescue packages being put together.
“But I still think people are going to want to visit theatres and go to galleries. We have to try hard to make sure the arts voice is heard in a climate where there’s competition for the money people are spending.”
As well as finding out more about Wales’ arts scene, Mr Capaldi says his immediate objectives include considering how ACW is supporting the organisations it funds.
“Are we responding as helpfully and creatively as we should be doing? Are we maximising opportunities for new creative voices to come through and be nurtured and developed,” he says.
“One of the most important things is to ensure that every pound we invest in the arts is being used to the maximum.”
He also wants to work with the Welsh Assembly Government to persuade them to invest as much as they can in the arts.
“We have a good relationship with WAG and I’m very grateful for the additional funds they’ve provided for the Beacon Awards and the English-language National Theatre of Wales.
“But we still have a responsibility to speak out in support of the arts in Wales. Out of the £14bn annual budget the Welsh Assembly has, we get £30m, which equates to about one calendar day’s expenditure.
“I feel that the people of Wales are getting tremendous value for money out of that public investment. With additional funds, we could really see the creative sector fly over the coming years.”
Mr Capaldi, 47, is keen to ensure that young people in Wales are exposed to the arts.
“The arts experience that changed my life quite literally was going along to a production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman as a 13-year-old as part of a school visit,” he says.
“I’d had no particular burning desire to be involved in the arts but I was completely blown away with what I saw on stage.
“Encouraging young people to get involved with the arts is one of the most important things the Arts Council should be doing.
“Those schools with integrated arts programmes see improvement overall of test results and attendance levels and have more confident young people.”
Mr Capaldi’s introduction to music came when he received piano lessons as an 11th birthday present.
“There was always music around our house. My father was quite a talented amateur musician.”
After studying, he worked as a professional pianist but he would often find himself promoting his own concerts.
“Friends and colleagues would then ask me to promote events for them, and it got to the stage where I realised I was spending more time promoting than playing, but I enjoyed doing it.”
So he made the move into arts management – although he admits that the family home he shares with wife Lucy, a speech therapist, and children Max, 16, and Anna, 14, still has a piano.
But with such a challenging new role, it seems that he may not have much time to tinkle the ivories in the foreseeable future.
by Karen Price, Western Mail