Linking arts initiative and artistic policy: a history of institutionalisation, financing and artistic programming of the Belgian ‘factory of sounds’ - the National Radio Institute and its orchestra - between 1929 and 1960. How and why this orchestra became a leading world orchestra that promoted modernistic music?

As part of a larger research on the history of private and public arts initiative in Belgium, this paper discusses the Belgian public broadcasting institute, the National Radio Institution (N.I.R./I.N.R.) and its orchestra, the Big Symphonic Orchestra, spanning the period between
1929 and 1960. The N.I.R. founded in 1931, created its Great Symphonic Orchestra in 1935,
comprising the first fully subsided symphonic orchestra of Belgium.
Between 1936 and 1958 this orchestra was recognized as one of the world leading orchestra's that promoted modernistic composers like Strawinksy, Prokofief, Milhaud, Bartok, Hindemith, Berg and others. This paper aims to investigate 'why' and 'how' this Symphonic Orchestra gained such a unique place in the Belgian and international world of music.
To investigate 'why' this paper places the origin of the orchestra in the larger context of the rise and fall of modernistic music in Brussels between 1919 and 1939. To investigates 'how' it focuses on the conditions that determine success.
The research is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a databank containing more than 3000 entries. The data is obtained from concert files, letters, and articles (with sources extending beyond the archives of the NIR, but including archives of composers, directors and former organizations in Brussels that promoted modernism from 1919 on). In addition, the research analyzes the musical policy, decisions of the board of the N.I.R. and the Great Symphony Orchestra and also the rehearsal schedules between 1931 and 1958.