Even With Strike Settlement, Detroit Symphony Fortunes Are Shaky

Settling the strike is only the first mountain in a series of treacherous peaks that the financially crippled DSO has to scale on its way to a viable future. With $54 million in real estate debt, $9 million in projected deficits in the next three years, a rapidly shrinking endowment, subscription numbers as bloody as the end of a slasher movie and relationships between musicians and management as hostile as “The War of the Roses,” the DSO’s margin for error remains razor thin.