Category: music

Despite the large number of news stories devoted to the financial crunch facing the orchestral industry, plenty of orchestras are doing just fine, thank you. Case in point: the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which is using a combination of cutting-edge marketing strategy and reverence for the history of the industry to stay on the right side of the financial ledger. And budget-slashing boards at other major American orchestras also might want to make note of the fact that the CSO is accomplishing all this while continuing to make recordings, appear on nationwide TV broadcasts, and mount extensive (and expensive) national and international tours.

Even with an orchestral success story like Cincinnati, the continued economic malaise has taken its toll. “Since the stock market decline, the CSO endowment has shrunk from more than $94 million to $61 million. To help make ends meet, the CSO has increased its endowment spending rate from 6 percent to 8.35 percent… Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the players’ two-year contract.”

“Despite a shortened season and fewer ticket sales than usual, the Seattle Opera ended the season on a high note… For the 11th consecutive year, the opera has ended the season in the black. For 2002-03, the opera spent exactly what its budget projected: $14.3 million.” Not all the news was bright – slumping ticket sales are always a concern – but the company’s board says that prospects for the future are brighter because of the financial conservatism the company has adopted for the present.

The Recording Industry Association of America is filing supoenas as quickly as it can draft them for ISPs, compelling them to turn over names of suspected copyright infringing downloaders. “This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing information subpoenas is exactly what we said we’d do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we were gathering evidence to file lawsuits.’ The trade group said it would probably file several hundred lawsuits this summer.”

Is the recording industry’s aggressive attack on music downloaders doomed to fail? “What has emerged through numerous interviews in person and over the phone is the voice of a new generation that says the industry is out of touch and needs to get with the times – stop charging so much for CDs, move its business online where millions of consumers already are, and stop trying to make criminals out of people who love its product.”

“A piano piece by French composer Claude Debussy found two years ago will be played officially for the first time in a small church in central Sweden today. Debussy, the founder of the Impressionist movement in music, wrote the piece in 1917 during the First World War.” The work, which was discovered in a trunk in Paris two years ago, is less than three minutes long, and seems to have been written as a musical thank-you note to the composer’s coal supplier.

Christopher T. Dunworth has resigned as executive director of the brand new Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts in northeast Pennsylvania, raising further questions about the viability of the center, which was to become the summer home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this year. “Originally delayed from opening Memorial Day weekend by poor interior roads, the center will make its debut a day later than announced,” and the PSO has halved the number of concerts it originally planned to play there. Dunworth isn’t giving any reason for his departure, and Mountain Laurel officials have already announced his interim replacement.

“The uncertain saga of the Florida Philharmonic goes into federal bankruptcy court this morning, where the musicians union is expected to give its permission for a group of reorganizers to continue its efforts to raise money and generate community support in its bid to bring the orchestra back to life.” There has been no shortage of energy from the volunteer choristers who have been trying to save the orchestra from extinction, but they have yet to raise anywhere near the amount of money they need, and there just doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of community support for the ensemble, which collapsed this spring under a weight of ugly debt.

The Buffalo Philharmonic is a month away from closing out its books for the fiscal year, and, to the surprise of some, things are looking awfully good. In fact, the BPO, which ran a whopping $1.2 million deficit last year, is on the verge of breaking even in a year when many large orchestras are well into the red and many small ones are shutting down for lack of cash. Key to the turnaround seems to be improving ticket sales, which have jumped 15% in Buffalo from last season to this one.

They’re back. London’s Proms concerts are the summer music fest every critic seems to love to hate. Big, showy, popular and rippling with gaudy nationalism, they also seem to grow each year. “As though to reinforce its paramountcy, the BBC has announced a season, to open on Friday, with more concerts than ever, more special events and an expansion of the Proms in the Park to embrace all four UK nations for the first time.”