U.S. Symphony Orchestras

Very interesting thread. I cannot be impartial here, being a professional orchestral musician, however I also want to maintain relative anonymity here so I can feel more free to post on these kinds of topics, so I will not go into specifics too much, and not about my own orchestra at all. I will comment on a couple of things that have been posted so far, though.

Rok2kid wrote "Stop all the rehersals for EVERY concert. This saves money." Leaving aside the strange implication following about artistic quality not being important (??!!), professional orchestras do not rehearse very much. For a typical classical subscription concert, most orchestras will have about four, at most five rehearsals, all in the same week as the three or four performances (this is assuming a large orchestra such as those actually named so far in the thread). For a typical pops concert, there will usually be only one, or at most two rehearsals. For a program which is repeated throughout the season, such as a kiddie show, there will usually be only one rehearsal at the beginning of the season. For orchestras that still play the Nutcracker every Christmas season (very few ballet companies use live orchestras anymore - they are in much worse shape than we), there would only be one rehearsal.

Brownsfan is basically correct about how funding works. Ticket sales for many orchestras only account for about 25% of their budget (this is an average of all orchestras, not just the big ones). All orchestras are non-profit organizations that must raise their budget all over again each and every season. One thing I will say is that corporate funding is nowhere near as large as you guys seem to think, and a great many large corporations have stopped giving much at all. A great many orchestras in this country are kept afloat by just one or two extremely wealthy individual patrons.

IMO, many orchestras spend far too much time trying to chase corporations and/or extremely wealthy individuals for huge donations, and nowhere near enough time focusing on the middle class, which would of course include most of their actual audience in attendance at the concerts. For instance, if an orchestra in a large metropolitan area could get at least 3000 people to give just $100 in a year, that's $300,000 right there. But too many orchestras only go after individuals who might be able to write one check for that three hundred grand.

There are a great many orchestras having this conversation right now, trying to stay viable. I will be passing along some of the comments here to some of my colleagues, both the positive and negative. Many orchestras certainly need to change their marketing strategies, that's for sure. Mine is no exception. I hope more people will contribute to this thread.

And by the way, Onhwy61, I'll be giving some thought to the idea that about 7 of the top 20 orchestras in the world right now would be American. My first instinct would be to say that that is probably about right, possibly one or two more, but of course this is a very subjective question.

Onhwy61, thanks for the link. I feel compelled to point out that this list was made by polling critics, not musicians. I assure you the list would be quite a bit different if musicians had been polled. It is also almost four years old now, which is not a long time, but there happens to have been quite a bit of turnover in key positions in many American orchestras the last few years (and I'm sure the same is true in Europe). The top American orchestras, IMO, right now,(and not necessarily in this order!) would be the Met, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, LA, NY Phil. There are several others right under those. Certainly the traditional "big five," consisting of New York, Boston, Chicago, Philly, and Cleveland, are not actually the best five anymore, though they still rank that way in salary, along with Pittsburgh and LA and San Francisco. It is absurd that the Met is not higher on that list, and that Pittsburgh is not on it at all. Pittsburgh, for example, became one of only two orchestras in the history of the Proms that got invited back for next summer directly from the stage right after their concert this past summer.

As for the European orchestras, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra is another absurd omission. Also the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. There are some other bizarre selections on that list, but I will not knock my colleagues...

Thanks to all the others posting about the main topic of this thread, and please keep the posts coming! To Gsm18439, I understand your frustration with orchestral marketing departments - believe me, most musicians everywhere are very frustrated right along with you. However, I will say that the managers will be more likely to listen to your concerns when you are supporting them financially. Also, consider writing to them with detailed concerns. If everyone that was frustrated withdrew their support, orchestras would cease to exist for the most part. I would encourage you to renew your support for the NSO - that is actually a very fine orchestra that has greatly improved and is attracting many great young musicians. If you haven't heard them in a few years, I assure you you will hear a distinct improvement if you go again now.

HI Rok2id - I understand where you are coming from in your last post - many orchestra boards or management teams have a hard time stating problems, and many musicians don't help matters either. However, "acting like a business" is not always the answer. Some boards think they can run an orchestra like they run their for-profit corporations, and those with that attitude usually fail spectacularly. Arts organizations are very different animals from the for-profit corporate world. Producing great art must be first and foremost - otherwise no one is going to support the organization. Far too many orchestras (and other arts organizations) are cutting the product (meaning not just in dollars but in quality) and paying the price for it.

Another weird thing is that many arts organizations do not like to advertise that they are beginning to have financial trouble, claiming that no one wants to give to an organization in trouble. So they wait until it is far too late, often drastically cutting back the product the while. That trick never works.

Hi Brownsfan - thanks for the comments. Regarding the governance structure of orchestras, these can be quite a bit different from group to group, and then as far as fund-raising goes, there are always big arts donor politics, which are different in each locale and can be very tricky (fortunately, the musicians have nothing to do with any of that, though it does greatly effect management). The executive board is ultimately the responsible party, though, you are correct there. The management team runs the organization for them. Often the vast majority of the full board members have no idea what is going on, and don't want to know - they just blindly trust the executive board. But every organization is different, and it is hard to make generalizations. The size of orchestra boards vary greatly, as well, as do the size of the management teams.

You mentioned endowments - one fascinating aspect of these that many people have no understanding of is that sometimes they are actually not much help at all as far as operating expenses go. It depends on whether the contributions are "donor-restricted" or not. The donors can put all kinds of stupid restrictions if they want, and there is not a damn thing anybody can do about it, rendering the contribution essentially untouchable and useless. So some orchestras that may have what looks like a sizeable endowment can't actually put it to any constructive use whatsoever, even if everyone involved wants to do so, unless they can convince the donor to remove the restriction. You would be shocked at some of the stories I have heard about donor-restrictions in various orchestras around the country.

Route9, many people would still put the BSO in the top ten - certainly there would be no debate about them being among the top ten American orchestras. As for the whole world, they would still probably make that list too, though it might be close. What was odd to me about that Gramophone list was the large number of Russian orchestras. Yes, there are some good ones, but that number of them in the top 20 in the world most musicians would probably not agree with.

You are correct about the BSO's endowment, too. They will be the last orchestra standing, for sure.