From the ROPA mailing list:
The Toledo Blade is running this story about orchestras in small cities. The article quotes Cathy Maciariello from the Mellon Foundation and discusses the Toledo Symphony and several other small orchestras.

Small cities can have first-rate symphony

By ANDREW DRUCKENBROD
BLOCK NEWS ALLIANCE
Toledo Blade
November 27, 2005

The Big Five. The top tier. The large budget.

When it comes to assessing the state of American orchestras, the focus
invariably centers on the giants of the industry. If ensembles such as
the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra post deficits, the news rings out like a cymbal
crash. If the Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra or Los Angeles
Philharmonic misstep financially, it’s seen as the national tempo.

But many orchestral musicians work in markets a sliver of the size of
the metropolitan centers these orchestras call home. Most players take
their seats on the stages of smaller cities, performing in orchestras
not nearly as financially troubled as the big boys, if troubled at all.
In fact, about 600 professional orchestras now operate in the United
States, according to a new study done at the University of Cincinnati.
That would seem to be an astounding figure for an art form many industry
experts predicted would be extinct by now.

This week the internationally acclaimed Pittsburgh Symphony will travel
to several midwest cities in a tour conducted by Hans Graf and featuring
violinist Sarah Chang. Casual observers might expect it would arrive in
Granville and Toledo, Ohio; South Bend and Bloomington, Ind.; and
Champaign-Urbana, Ill., as the only live orchestra that music lovers
there would hear all year.

Think again. Every one of these towns has an orchestra to call their
own. America brims with excellent small and midsize orchestras, many in
cities that the Pittsburgh Symphony will visit on its Midwest tour that
enhance the culture of their communities as well as keep classical music
viable nationally.

“The heath of the small orchestra is critical to the future of American
classical music,” says Larry Tamburri, president of the Pittsburgh
Symphony.

“These smaller symphonies serve to bridge the gap between major
metropolitan areas and their direct communities,” writes Brandon
VanWaeyenberghe in his study, “Musical Chairs.”

These days, you don’t have to visit the Big Apple or the Loop to hear
art music, or hear it performed well. Nearly every nook and cranny of
the United States can boast of some classical music presence. And in
terms of the bottom line, the more financially sound groups are
increasingly not found with major orchestras, despite their longer
seasons and larger endowments.

“A higher percentage of smaller orchestras are operating with balanced
budgets than the larger orchestras,” says Henry Fogel, president of the
American Symphony Orchestra League. “The bigger orchestra’s cost
structure is more rigid; the small orchestras are much more flexible.
They can adjust to financial difficulties much more quickly.”

The Toledo Symphony is a case in point: “We have never been in a
stronger position financially,” says Robert Bell, its executive
director.

The American Symphony Orchestra League designates professional orchestra
tiers according to annual budget size, from Group 1, with budgets of
roughly $14 million or more, to Group 7, with budgets of $124,000 to
$450,000. Only the first group contains full-time orchestras.

The big group that falls in behind Group 1 is not too many, says
VanWaeyenberghe: “While the American landscape is covered with over 600
professional symphony orchestras, few actually compete with each other
for the same market.”

On the contrary, smaller orchestras often rely on having peers in the
area. “You have geographical areas where the same musicians drive to
perform in more than one orchestra,” says Fogel. “If a group is in the
red, it doesn’t mean that there are too many [orchestras]; it may mean
it isn’t run well or doesn’t have the best product out there.”

Strength in small numbers

While the Pittsburgh Symphony, a Group 1 orchestra with a budget of
$30.5 million, is known for its community work, most small orchestras
outpace their bigger brothers in engaging the community. For long-term
stability, this is as important a factor as structural flexibility.

The Champaign-Urbana Symphony, a Group 7 orchestra, has no full-time
staffers and a budget of $280,000. However, it still managed to bus in
7,000 students last season for concerts. It also sends small ensembles
to surrounding and rural schools.

Recently, it created a family concert. “We try to reach out to the young
family that can’t go to the symphony and pay a baby sitter,” says Megan
Holland, executive director. Even in fund-raising, she says it is
crucial that they cater to the public, not the other way around. “My
board is up with what is going on; every fund-raiser we do is on the
edge. Next will be a raffle containing iPods.”

Financially, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony is on solid footing, she
says. “We ended last year with a deficit under $10,000, and this year we
plan to not have that. We have had increases in salary and staff hours.
Over the last three years we have added two concerts to the season.”

The Toledo Symphony, a Group 2 orchestra with a $6 million budget,
throws a particularly wide net out to its community. Fogel calls it a
model in creating a relationship with a region.

“The whole thing about reaching out to the community, we wrote the book
on that,” says Bell. “We were doing that in the ’60s, not just in
suburbs but inner city and rural areas. We are not into the vanity
thing. Some orchestras of our size make an issue of playing in Carnegie
Hall, but the economics don’t make sense. We are making a more profound
effect in our community this way.”

The orchestra also provides music for nearly every event where
instrumentalists are needed. The Toledo Symphony musicians play
everything from musicals and operas to weddings and funerals.

“We try to provide a service to the community, and we feel that they
support us financially,” says Bell. “Last year we did over 400 events.”

“The symphony is everywhere in town,” says clarinetist Ron Samuels, who
was hired by the Pittsburgh Symphony after he played in Toledo for 16
years.

The method is not without some controversy, in that it places the Toledo
Symphony in the realm of a monopoly. The concept is not just to funnel
income from sundry musical needs through the symphony, but to make sure
there is enough work for musicians to make a living.

“It was a matter of survival,” says Bell. “I was always looking for ways
to keep people here.” The Toledo Symphony had a slight deficit last
year, but Bell says that is balanced by a stronger endowment than in
years past ($14 million at present).

The South Bend Symphony has a budget of $1.5 million, placing it in
Group 5. But it doesn’t own its hall (which recently got a massive
renovation), has an agreement with the University of Notre Dame for a
guest artist each year and has no deficit.

“We have to be more creative,” says Joyce Stifel, citing a recent
Halloween concert with special effects that was received well. “Becoming
more accessible to our audience will be a key point.”

But how do they sound?

Musical quality is subjective, but many in the field agree that the
general quality level of classical music performances has been rising in
the past 25 years.

“I recently heard a performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony by the West
Virginia Symphony that I would have presented as an impresario in
Carnegie Hall, no apologies,” says Fogel.

“I remember driving and pull within the radio limits of Toledo,
listening to some Beethoven symphony, and saying that’s pretty good,
[only to hear], ‘You have just heard the Toledo Symphony,’Åú” says
Samuels. “I was pleasantly surprised by the level.”

Whether it’s the McKeesport Symphony or the South Bend Symphony, the key
is competency. If the performance doesn’t rise to the lofty heights of
the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan, well, neither do many
performances by Group 1 orchestras.

A major reason for the quality is the talent that pours into the market
place.

“Every year colleges and conservatories graduate 3,000 students who have
majored on orchestral instruments,” says Fogel. “There are only roughly
150 positions that open up.” That figure bodes poorly for students but
promises that even small orchestras can land talented players.

Some of these students will stay in the smaller groups; some, like
Samuels will move on. The bottom line is that the level of performance
overall is bolstered by the competition.

“There is a vibrant orchestra life in America, no question about it,”
says Tamburri.

Sizing each other up

What can orchestras learn from each other?

Plenty.

“What they do in terms of community engagement is big there,” says
Tamburri. “How they accomplish that, being embedded in the community, is
something worth looking at.”

To facilitate communication, in 1999 the Andrew Mellon Foundation
initiated an innovative project called the Orchestra Forum. It brings a
group of more than a dozen orchestras of various sizes together on a
regular basis to “explore the common issues they face,” says program
officer Cathy Maciariello.

“Orchestras have a lot to learn from each other despite what size they
are,” she says. “They share many common problems and opportunities
because the structure of orchestras are the same across the country. It
is not a question of budget size, but how people relate to each other.”

The Pittsburgh and Toledo symphonies are Mellon members. When the
Pittsburgh Symphony performs there Wednesday, Mellon has arranged for a
panel discussion and dinner for the members to further discuss pertinent
issues.

Previous discussion have yielded results. “Toledo is one of the more
interesting orchestras in the United States,” says Tamburri, formerly
head of the New Jersey Symphony. “I have borrowed more than one idea
from the Toledo Symphony in New Jersey and Pittsburgh.”

One idea was the expansive role that Toledo musicians play in running
the orchestra. Its personnel manager, sales staff and librarians are
just some of the musicians who also sit on the staff. Bell himself still
occasionally plays timpani. “We were on a modest budget, and because
musicians tend to be pretty bright and we needed help [I thought], why
not get someone who is conversant in the field?”

“The idea of the musicians being involved in the institution the smaller
orchestras are ahead of bigger orchestras in that,” says Tamburri. The
Pittsburgh Symphony hasn’t follow that path directly, but since
operating without a music director, musicians have increased their input
on many levels of the organization, from artistic planning to musician
hiring.

“There are finite resources, financially and intellectually in town for
just the classics,” says Bell.

It may just be that working with less has taught smaller symphonies to
do more. A musical lesson even the more accomplished groups can learn
from.