09/10 season

Inaugurating the second century of Bayer Arts & Culture

The arts thrive on tradition. Our two successful centenary seasons have shown that Bayer’s commitment to the arts as a tradition handed down over the generations has given them a firm place in its corporate culture. In the 2007/08 season we celebrated the centenary of Bayer Arts & Culture, followed in 2008/09 by the one hundredth anniversary of our cultural centre in Leverkusen.

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These two centenaries illustrated how seriously Bayer takes the principle of corporate social responsibility. Since patronage of the arts and culture is becoming an increasingly important part of this overall framework, a new term has been coined: cultural corporate responsibility. The term itself may be new but Bayer's commitment to the arts and culture is not.

Although tradition is the lifeblood of the arts and culture, change and innovation are equally important just as is the case in business. The 2009/10 season draws on this impetus for renewal: Dr. Volker Mattern, the new head of Bayer Arts & Culture, has enormous professional experience of precisely this field. He also has a special affinity with North Rhine-Westphalia having spent nearly 20 years of his career in this region.

In future, Bayer Arts & Culture will be focusing its work on interdisciplinary themes. The relationships between music, dance, theatre, the visual arts, literature and cinema and how they interact will create exciting new constellations each season. This season’s theme, The Arts and Power, has inspired the team at Bayer Arts & Culture to put together an ambitious programme of events which is impressive in both its diversity and its topicality.

More than ever before, educating young people in the arts is a key task for today’s society. Bayer Arts & Culture has therefore increased the number events aimed specifically at children and young people. For the first time, we are organizing events for different age groups in all areas of the arts. In addition, this season’s programme has been broadened to include modern art forms: a dance version of Romeo and Juliet incorporating elements of hip hop and break dance and a children’s concert with the Bayer Philharmonic that reaches out to the younger generation in an area that tends to be far more familiar to them than classical music – soccer!

Fostering the development of young people has been an integral part of Bayer’s corporate philosophy for many years and is a central element in our social responsibility. A particularly impressive example of our work in this field is our cooperation with UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme. UNEP and Bayer support a variety of youth projects around the world – including our annual painting competition for children, which attracts over 15,000 entries from 100 countries. The young artists produce impressive pictures expressing their environmental concerns.

Another example is the Bayer Science & Education Foundation which supports schools in communities around our sites. Its objective is to increase the motivation of schoolchildren and thus improve the opportunities available to the rising generation.

Bayer Arts & Culture’s new project stART, which is very important to me personally, takes up this theme. Highly talented young musicians, actors, dancers and artists will be invited to use Leverkusen as their artistic base for a certain period and enjoy the support that is essential for the first steps on a successful international career.

Bayer Arts & Culture also intends to broaden the regional reach of its work. That includes stepping up Bayer’s cultural profile in Berlin, an aspect which will take on greater prominence in the future. In conjunction with five renowned cultural institutions in Germany’s capital, in the next few years Bayer Arts & Culture will be establishing a new cultural axis between Leverkusen and Berlin, featuring some very interesting aspects.

A new look is needed to highlight the present phase of redefinition and refocusing. The new Bayer Arts & Culture logo is younger, fresher, more modern. At the same time, the range of publications has been revised and extended. We hope that these efforts will help to raise awareness of our high-quality support for culture and the arts outside Leverkusen.

The stage is set for the successful introduction of our new strategies and focus. I would like to take this opportunity to wish the new head of Bayer Arts & Culture, Dr. Volker Mattern, and his team all the best and hope that the 2009/10 season and the seasons to come prove a great success. May I also wish all friends and supporters of Bayer Arts & Culture an interesting and stimulating season.

Yours

Michael Schade
Head of Communications, Bayer AG