Even San Francisco’s In The Red

During the various orchestral crises of the last few years, the San Francisco Symphony has been a shining example of fiscal and artistic balance, having planned for an economic downturn which few others saw coming, and having posted surpluses as other orchestras ran deficits in the millions. But even the SFS isn’t immune to a 4-year economic slump, and this week, it announced a small deficit of $135,945 on a budget of more than $50 million. Most American orchestras would be overjoyed to run so slightly in the red (or to have a budget that even approaches $50 million,) and San Francisco executives say they aren’t overly concerned about it.