Category: music

“Prince George’s struggling symphony orchestra shouldn’t even exist. It has a mammoth $250,000 deficit. It will lose another $95,000 when the B.C. government slices its arts budget. … But the struggling orchestra in the hard-scrabble northern B.C. town refused to die. If the people wouldn’t come to the symphony, the symphony decided it would go to the people.”

The trustees of the Eccles Foundation in Salt Lake City were inspired to make the $1 million donation this fall, after the musicians donated $1.3 million in salary and benefits for the current season to help the organization through a cash crunch.

Last month, facing a financial crisis, the HSO cancelled all remaining 2009 concerts and made no guarantees for the rest of the season. But on Dec. 27, conductor JoAnn Falletta and the orchestra’s musicians (all donating their services) will perform Beethoven’s 9th Symphony “as a thank-you to the community who has supported us for so many years.”

Daniel J. Wakin’s description of the Cincinnati Symphony as a “regional” orchestra (a “major regional,” mind you, but still) in a New York Times blog post drew some objections. So Wakin has opened up the question to readers: “Who says a regional orchestra can’t be a good one? … So what does give an orchestra elite status?”

“If it meets [its $1.77 million fund-raising] goal, the symphony expects to get $900,000 from the Arts & Science Council, which had threatened to drastically cut the symphony’s annual grant because of questions about viability.”

“The ASO and music director Robert Spano have picked 25-year-old Norwegian-born violinist David Coucheron. He replaces violinist Cecylia Arzewski, who served as the orchestra’s most prominent member for 18 years.”

“Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director designate Riccardo Muti took a giant step toward realizing his goals of connecting the CSO with wider audiences and young people of all backgrounds by tapping cellist Yo-Yo Ma … for a new position in the orchestra’s artistic and educational leadership.”

“The orchestra will report its first deficit since 2005, a shortfall of $2 million, on a budget of $43.7 million. That figure itself was trimmed mid-year in response to the worsening financial picture, from $44.6 million. The deficit comes despite an injection of nearly $2.3 million from special bridge funds raised as part of the orchestra’s five-year turnaround plan, now in its final year.”

“British orchestras are increasingly defying tradition by hiring a fresh generation of brilliant young maestros. Of 19 professional orchestras in this country, nine have principal conductors so young that, until only recently, they would not have been taken seriously either by orchestras or audiences.”

This season actor Alec Baldwin “became the official announcer of the New York Philharmonic’s weekly radio broadcasts. His involvement reflects an unusual dimension for a Hollywood figure and one that may come as a surprise to many: a passion for classical music that allows him to talk as comfortably about orchestral repertory as he does about movie shoots and television syndication.”