# Struggling Symphony Orchestras



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

If your city has an orchestra, how is it doing? I live in Syracuse, NY where our symphony orchestra just canceled it's 50th anniversary season due to massive debt. It's pretty sad when Wall Street crooks get bailed out, but symphonies are allowed to fold. I suppose I'm partly at fault for not buying tickets in recent years, but I've called friends asking them to join me for a night at the symphony and they said they couldn't afford it. RIP-Syracuse Symphony


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

The Louisville Orchestra is in some serious trouble. They declared one kind of bankruptcy earlier in the season (the one where you just reorganize, can't remember what number just now). I'm not sure if they'll stay afloat or for how much longer. As I understand it, it isn't even because of loss of audience, but because none of the board understand the situation; if they did understand, they could do something about it and everything would be hunky-dory. But there it is.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

It's all very sad. An orchestra folding is a big loss to the community. The Oregon Symphony (based in Portland) is actually doing okay financially, but the ballet had to cut their pit orchestra. It's a wonderful ballet, and I still go, but people dancing to recorded music or two-piano transcriptions isn't the same.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is doing alright, I think. People give money to them by buying season tickets. And also because they play a lot of Prokofiev,  like what I heard Saturday night. OHHHHHH So wonderful, I would go back in time and relive that 80 minutes.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

A few weeks ago the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic emailed their supporters urging them to write to the local council to protest about the 20% cut in the council's grant to the orchestra. I did not do what they asked. The cut is unfortunate but the finances of this country are in a parlous state and cuts must be endured.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

The Concertgebouw is doing pretty well - at least it seems so on the surface.

Playing to a sold-out crowd everynight. A large circle of patrons (including my family).

Only ive noticed some of the paintwork is splitting and some of the roping on the stage is losing its colour. Time for a renovation.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> The Concertgebouw is doing pretty well - at least it seems so on the surface.
> 
> Playing to a sold-out crowd everynight. A large circle of patrons (including my family).
> 
> Only ive noticed some of the paintwork is splitting and some of the roping on the stage is losing its colour. Time for a renovation.


The Concertgebouw is considered by many to be the current best orchestra in the world, having taken this post from the Berliner Philharmoniker. I think that the differences are pretty small at the top level, but no wonder that these outstanding orchestras do well. I'm more worried about the humble regional orchestras that have suffered enormously with the economic crisis. One of the things people cut down during economic turmoil is donations to the arts (and also people buy less tickets). I did decrease my attendance and my donations to the local orchestra and the local opera company in my metropolitan area.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> The Concertgebouw is doing pretty well - at least it seems so on the surface.
> 
> Playing to a sold-out crowd everynight. A large circle of patrons (including my family).
> 
> Only ive noticed some of the paintwork is splitting and some of the roping on the stage is losing its colour. Time for a renovation.


That's your local orchestra, isn't it? Jealous!


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Yep, 10 minute bike ride through town.
Feel very privileged!


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

emiellucifuge said:


> Yep, 10 minute bike ride through town.
> Feel very privileged!


Be careful: especially at the Concertgebouw there are a lot of those nasty tram rails, that make you & your bike collapse  (speaking from experience)


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

The trick is to cross them at a perpendicular angle. If you go parallel then you *will* fail.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

The Sacramento Symphony Orchestra (capital of California, USA) folded after several tough years in 1997. At that time the Sacramento Philharmonic started as a very part time symphony. Sacramento is a city of roughly 400,000.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Did anyone here hear about the strike with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra? That was pretty sad. I think it ended now, but it lasted quite a few months. The musicians there were protesting about a salary or benefits cut I think.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

In the UK, most of the orchestras (especially outside London) have been lurching on and off the precipice of collapse for around 20 years. Setting the USA aside for the moment (which has a very different system of funding), if I tell you that, year on year, the Berlin Philharmonic alone receives more state funding than ALL the UK orchestras combined, that might give you some idea as to how little classical music is valued in this country. It is a miracle that we still have as many orchestras as we do (albeit that several valued cultural institutions have disappeared over the last 20 years, never to return). That they manage to survive depends on terrible rates of pay (for musicians and managers alike), terrible working conditions and obscenely long hours by administrations staff.

The government has now (through the Arts Council) just introduced even more cuts throughout the arts, with some major and important concert venues facing an uncertain future in the face of a complete slashing of their central funding. What with the London Olympics just around the corner, I dread the state of British music come 2013!


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

I'm sure there are people who feel that funding music is equally ridiculous as I do funding sport events.


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

classical music community should done better in marketting their product.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

jurianbai said:


> classical music community should done better in marketting their product.


We have a local band that is quite famous internationally, the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Everytime I see its advertisement, it shows a vibrant group of relatively young looking players, say 20 to 30 somethings. If that helps in terms of marketing and promotion, which is often perception, then I say "yes, whatever it takes".


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## Orange Soda King (Sep 14, 2010)

The Louisville Orchestra has been undergoing financial troubles lately, although I do not know the latest updates on their situation.


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## AmateurComposer (Sep 13, 2009)

Rasa said:


> I'm sure there are people who feel that funding music is equally ridiculous as I do funding sport events.


I am not a fun of professional sport, but I think that sport, classical music, and other cultural activities should be funded. There is no justification for cultural activities facing financial difficulties.



jurianbai said:


> classical music community should done better in marketting their product.


Professional sport enjoys financial support from private industry because it has natural appeal to wider public and is more open to advertisements. For classical music, along with the theater and many other cultural activities, advertisement is an unwelcome distraction, and the audience is much smaller. So, how does _jurianbai_ propose to improve marketting?


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