Crisis at the Minnesota Orchestra

From the MinnPost:

… The orchestra released its operating results for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2020. The big news: a deficit of $11.7 million, the largest in its history. Last year’s deficit was $8.8 million, another record-breaker. No one who follows the orchestra has forgotten that the record-breaker before that, for 2012, was $6 million, enough to help lead to a lockout that lasted 15 months.

The $11.7 million deficit occurred between September 2019 and August 2020, during which the orchestra played 89 live-and-in-person ticketed concerts…. If the deficit grew by nearly $3 million when the orchestra was still doing business as usual, at least for part of the time, what will it look like for FY21, during which it might not play any live concerts at all?

It gets worse. The orchestra has been slow and over-cautious in addressing Covid. Its public face has been unimpressive.

Read on here.