Things Aren’t Really That Bad At The Belgrade Philharmonic

That newspaper ad last month offering the musicians’ services “at weddings, funerals, baptisms, birthdays, divorces and saints’ days”? The orchestra’s music director says, “This was our way of drawing the attention of a broader public to the problems of the Philharmonic, to somehow present our financial problems in an absurd, Monty Python way.” And it worked: “Within 36 hours a Facebook support group had sprung up with several thousand members … [and] the advertisement attracted a surge of support from new, younger music fans.”