Failed US orchestra fails again
OrchestrasThe San Antonio Symphony Orchestra was dissolved just over two years ago after the board failed to reach agreement with the musicians.
The players promptly regrouped into the San Antonio Philharmonic, excluding all former staff and board members from participating in its affairs. All seemed to be going well, with Jeffrey Kahane flying in as music director, until last month.
One board member is now demanding the return of a $150,000 loan and others are seeking to depose the chairman.
San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the US.
Unions…….collective bargaining once again screwed the pooch.
No, click through to the much more detailed article. Board members are infighting over who gets to be in charge and (as usual) ignoring the musicians entirely.
The players chose the board members. Duh.
Greater San Antonio is the 24th largest Metropolitan area in the United States. It is approximately the size of greater Orlando Florida, Charlotte North Carolina or Portland Oregon, to put things in perspective. An unusually large portion of the population lives in the central city. At the risk of being accused of racism, only 30% of the population is designated by the U.S. census as being ‘non-hispanic white’. As I have commented before this seems like infertile ground for a symphony orchestra. Yes, Latinos can listen to classical music, but many of them are poor and for many others this represents a foreign, unfamiliar culture.
Precisely. And when will symphony orchestras begin to appreciate the true value of their core audience? Instead, they choose to pander to the personal political whims of the left-leaning with their compelling need to virtue signal, but for what, just to preen in public? “Oh, look at us, we had two people from an ‘underserved’ audience attend a concert!” Look where they are now.
Pretty sure that’s not the problem
Greater Orlando, Charlotte, and Portland all have solid professional orchestras. San Antonio, for whatever reason, has had trouble keeping a healthy professional orchestra for many years now.
There are hundreds of professional orchestras in the US, many in smallish cities, like Springfield MO, or Des Moines. There are not hundreds of great music directors/ conductors. I. Impressed that so many have made it so far. As expensive as they are to maintain.
If the argument were true that a large hispanic population is “an infertile ground for a symphony orchestra”, there wouldn’t be orchestras in Latin America. But the opposite is true. Orchestras are everywhere, and some of them are terrific, in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. Other places too, no doubt. Paraguay, a small, landlocked country with only 3/4 the population of New York City has 5 busy professional orchestras in its capital Asunción. Even in communities of severe economic development we see a great appreciation for classical music and orchestras, as explained by the blossoming of “El Sistemas” and similar socio-orchestral programs in several countries. The latino population density in San Antonio may not a problem in itself, but how to galvanize that population into supporting a symphony orchestra (with money and/or attendance) may be a good topic of discussion.
And no, it is not racism to quote a census percentage. 🙂
Back in the day, apparently Mark Twain had some sort of dispute with a local school board. I don’t know the specifics. But Twain said: “In the beginning, God created idiots. That was for practice. Then he created school boards.”
Substitute “orchestra boards” for “school boards” and you get the picture.
God bless Mark Twain.
The musicians where the founding board members in this case.
Yes, it’s the seventh largest city but it’s a very difficult market.
It is a poor city.
https://www.tpr.org/news/2023-09-14/san-antonio-3rd-poorest-among-top-ten-major-u-s-cities
There is a large military population, which means a highly transient populations and you have a number of corporations headquartered there — USAA financial services, Valero Energy, i Heart Radio, HEB supermarkets, etc. — with zero or almost zero history of supporting the arts.
It looks like they’ve scheduled 20 classical subscription concerts for 2024-25, including some in the Majestic Theatre, a 2,800 seat hall. This is absurd. Do they — the board, staff, musicians — really think there are enough classical music lovers in San Antonio to support 20 classical concerts, plus everything else they’ve got scheduled?
Madness, I tell you. Madness.
The Majestic Theatre was their home for many years. It is a beautiful hall; perhaps a designated national historic landmark. It is used now for touring productions and a variety of performing arts presentations.
Perhaps they thought they Could Go Home Again, at least for 1 series of concerts. They are talented players and I hope they can ultimately succeed..
According to google, the Majestic has around a 2,200 seat capacity. I just looked at the venues ticket sales seating availability for a few concerts upcoming concerts, and boy oh boy is it empty. There’s no way you’re going to sell three shows (6,600 seats) to a Sibelius Violin concerto in San Antonio, or really anywhere in Texas, for a mid-season January concert. Very ill-informed in how their going about this.
They should start a Go Fund Me for classical music lovers who want to help.
Not needed. It was easy to donate on their website.
San Antonio has undergone some radical demographic changes in recent years. At one time the orchestra was thriving when James Sedares was there. At that time one of the USA’s most important music publishers, Southern Music Company, until it was bought up by Hal Leonard and moved to Minnesota. The San Antonio Symphony faced a lot of challenges, like all American orchestras do, and their stubborn insistence on playing the same European classics over and over didn’t help. And for many residents, UTSA music department provides all they need.
I thought that Sedares was associate conductor there, no? I do know that the fact that Southern Music was located in San Antonio had no affect whatsoever on the SA Symphony. Certainly no financial affect.
The days of the rich oilmen and cattlemen with wives who wanted a symphony to go to are probably over.
There are still oilmen and cattlemen but they are tight with their money and their new trophy wives have no clue about classical music.
I’m confused. Tight-fisted rich oil & cattle men who still manage to score ‘trophy’ wives? But now the wives are not interested in classical music. But were they EVER genuinely interested? My theory is no. Probably only went ‘to be seen’! Now they have Social Media.
Not enough information in this article to understand the situation.
The apparent successor to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris was asked what music she listens to. Her answer was succinct – Mary J. Blige. What? No Petrushka, Lulu or Makropolus Affair? Classical music is just too “depressing” for party hearty folk. Nothing wrong with dance floor carnal flirting but people should mix in some symphonic literature meticulously designed to engender a hopeful transcendence of existential grief. Why not treasure both types? A fantasy, I know.
Rather a pompous and culturally dismissive response.
Said the pot, calling the kettle black.
Kamala has great taste in music. Anyone who digs Charles Mingus is alright by me.
Not every city can support a symphony orchestra. The ones that fail do fail over and over.
San Antonio has a good orchestra that the city failed to support. The orchestra did not fail. They did their job.
Doing “their job” is becoming an important part of their community. They did not do this.
Dear NotToneDeaf, doing your homework is an important part of being informed. The following should prove help you in that regard.
On June 26, Lauren Eberhart (board representative of the four-member orchestra committee) sent an email to board members on behalf of the Philharmonic’s four-member orchestra committee representing the musicians. To end the letter, they touted accomplishments achieved by their “young organization,” the last of 14 bullet points stating that they have created “a positive recognition and dialogue around the SA Phil in the local, regional and national arts conversation.”
Brian Petkovich (a bassoonist and board president of the San Antonio Philharmonic) says the former symphony musicians involvement as educators is part of why so many wanted to stay in San Antonio. It’s also why staging free Young People’s Concerts is so important to them. The group performed 36 at school campuses around the city last season and plan to increase that number this season.
“It’s become my home over the past 27 years,” Petkovich says of San Antonio, a sentiment he says many of the musicians share. “I feel passionate about what the city can be—passionate about how the philharmonic can play a part in the fabric of the arts in San Antonio.”
How the situation comes across to someone who’s followed the news for decades on this is: the orchestra would burn through donors in emergency/save the orchestra fundraising about every two to three years since the late 1990s. Each time the musicians would less than graciously, and publicly, demand more money from their most generous donors, and eventually those donors would walk away.
The city supported them, then got tired of them.
CMI (Classical Music Institute) imports scab musicians from outside of Texas, calls them Orchestra San Antonio, and took over most of the residency and work (opera/ ballet) that San Antonio Symphony used to do as a union orchestra. How is that OK??
Yes, and the city government gives them grant money which is disgraceful.
I remember the days when the orchestra was one if the leading orchestras in our state. Under maestro Victor Alessandro the orchestra became a world class ensemble. I even have a couple of older recordings by the orchestra dating back to the 50s and 60s.
It’s the seventh largest U.S. city geographically speaking, not by population.