Columbus Symphony: Could it really die?
The Dispatch wrote
Columbus Symphony: Could it really die?
Friday, March 14, 2008
BY MICHAEL GROSSBERG
Nearly broke and still short of solutions, the Columbus Symphony could fold as early as next month, the president of the symphony board says. Although efforts to save central Ohio’s largest arts organization continue behind the scenes, Robert “Buzz” Trafford said the orchestra’s demise is possible if additional donations prove elusive.
“Without more help, there’s a very real risk that our money won’t take us beyond the next month or two,” Trafford said. “Our options would become extremely limited, including suspension of operations.”
A spokesman for the musicians downplayed talk of a shutdown. “We’ve heard the rumors,” said principal tuba player Jim Akins. “I find it difficult to believe. … It would be a terrible tragedy. The city would lose its soul.”
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March 15th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I received this over email from a friend:
Subject: From David Thomas to CSO Supporters
Friends, things are not going well. I beg your attention for a few minutes while I report the "unreported" events surrounding the arts crisis in Columbus. These are my opinions and not the official view of our committee representatives.
I am convinced our orchestra, the Columbus Symphony, which has been built to world class level in the past 56 years, will be decimated by the insidious restructuring "plan" (fire 22 and cut salary 30%) forcefully proposed by the board of trustees and management. Many musicians (including myself) will leave, seeking better work elsewhere. Lives and careers will be ruined. The music will be gone.
Recently, there have been several articles in the local newspaper announcing the city and county’s intentions (Thrive in Five) to set aside funds for arts organizations in Columbus. Unfortunately those promised funds have not changed the tenor of the board’s official attitude toward the symphony. In fact, I believe they give false hope to those who support the orchestra. Truth is, there has been no indication that the "plan" will be altered or discarded.
Two other articles have appeared in the Dispatch, one announcing next season’s programs and another about last week’s live recording of our concerts for the Denon record label. While this publicity helps us, the musicians’ perspective and comments were shut out from both articles. (in fact, none of our official press releases have been printed since this all began) I believe several quotes from those articles need to be isolated to demonstrate the damage they are causing.
In the article about next season’s programs, the first thing Ex. Dir. Tony Beadle is quoted saying is, "The orchestra may go on strike…" There has been no mention of a strike by our representatives. Why would Mr. Beadle open with such an inflammatory and presumptuous phrase in the public press? What are his intentions?
In another article, last week’s recording project was deemed a "vanity" event by Mr. Beadle (which FYI was not organized by management, but by principal tuba Jim Akins with support from Gene D’Angelo). To brand as "vain" a recording by a well known international label is absurd. Recordings build and inspire GREATER support for an orchestra. If he considers this beneficial publicity to be excess fat, what are Mr. Beadle’s real goals for developing the symphony? Who is directing him?
Columbus is larger and growing faster than Cleveland, Cincinnati or Pittsburgh. Of those cities, Columbus’ per capita income is highest. Yet musicians’ salaries are already 30-50% lower than the orchestras in those cities. How embarrassing that "the powers that be" in the Capitol of Ohio seem unable to justify an orchestra appropriate to its size and wealth! Columbus deserves a real concert hall and a better vision for its orchestra’s growth, not the dismembering of its largest arts institution.
In yesterday’s article about county support for the arts there is this quote by Commissioner Marilyn Brown, "We so often talk about Columbus as a sports community. Columbus is arts, too". That is empty rhetoric. Last year I attended a play in Pittsburgh, which has a thriving theater district with numerous productions offered on a Tuesday evening. Columbus barely squeaks for the arts by comparison. Let’s face that fact and act upon it, rather than thinking smaller and smaller."
We have 15 organizations with budgets over $500,000," Bill Conner, head of CAPA, said in yesterday’s Dispatch. Wow! That’s such a stress on a huge city which spends untold hundreds of millions per year on sports. Mr. Connor continues, "This isn’t about bailing out the symphony. This is about providing support for our arts and cultural community." If supporting a great orchestra in our city is "bailing it out", then we need to ask Mr. Connor why he’s in arts management.
Last season, the orchestra reluctantly gave up three weeks of precious Classical Series to allow management to "repackage" those weeks into something more marketable. Those weeks were feebly renamed and then even more feebly marketed, and now have been canceled. Three weeks of classical music are for all intents and purposes lost, to you and to us. Their only function now, as empty paid weeks, is fodder to argue for cutting our contractual weeks permanently.
There have been viable rumors of plans to shut down the orchestra April 1st (April Fools Day!) Additionally, there are hints that cheaper, lower quality Eastern European orchestras will be brought in to "replace" our lost weeks. I heard one of these groups last year here in Columbus. The quality was far inferior to the CSO, which lives and works here.
Next season’s schedule, which usually starts in mid-September, is not slated to begin until October. CAPA and the stagehands who work for them are itching to dump the CSO for more lucrative Broadway shows.
What can you do? A lot. Please, spread the word. Forward this letter to everyone. Write and phone your city and state representatives, specifically Gov. Strickland and Mayor Coleman. Call for the resignation of those who claim to represent and support this orchestra and Columbus by proposing this defeatist plan. Call for the Dispatch to fairly report the musicians’ statements.
More information can be found at symphonymusicians.com and a new site to be officially launched April 1, symphonystrong.com. Add your voice. Let’s prove grassroots networking can change things.
Sincerely,
David Thomas,
Principal Clarinet
Your Columbus Symphony
March 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
i would HATE to see this happen!
This is one of those situations where the “if i had a zillion dollars” fantasies come to mind…
March 15th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Thanks for posting that th0m. I was going to post a link to the Dispatch article this morning, but had to run.
Here is a plan : The musicians tell the CSO to take a long walk off a short bridge and go it on their own. Kill it before it dies from the rot. Take a real stand instead of relying on the public dole, more life-support bailouts and other plasters on a hemmorhage. Make the CCCP (Columbus Classical Collective Program). Run it your way. Own the production. If you do this, I will buy season tickets and I will host a CCCP benefit.
The management of the CSO has repeatedly demonstrated less-than-no interest in facing the problems and moving forward. They spurned the CU attempt to make an event and, iirc what Walker told me, just referred him to group sales. After that, some other parties I know made inquiries about having a chance to dialogue/event with them - to the same result. The musicians’ grievances outline some of the general inept, arrogant and idiotic postures of the management. Time for them to go.
A.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:45 am
How did they spurn the CU attempt to make an event?
March 16th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Given that the orchestra will still be running an operating deficit even after all $1.15 million of the planned state and local government cash infusion comes in (assuming they earn all of it, since it looks like at least part of it is structured as matching funds), it doesn’t quite seem like the appropriate time to be hammering on the point that CSO musicians make 30-50% less than counterparts in other cities, taking Mr. Thomas at his word that that is in fact the case.
Also, reading between the lines of what Mr. Thomas seems to be scratching for, Mr. Connor is right about this being a “bailout.” Mr. Thomas never actually comes out and says exactly what it is that he’d like to see, but a big no-strings-attached check from the taxpayers does seem to be what he’s pushing. That’s the logical implication of trying to recharacterize a bailout as merely “supporting a great orchestra in our city,” and talking about “the powers that be” (which could be the business/donor community, but I read as the government) not being able “to justify an orchestra appropriate to its size and wealth,” with “it” pretty clearly being the city (”the Capitol of Ohio,” though technically that actually means the Statehouse–Columbus is the capital), not the business/donor community. Apparently Mr. Thomas is taking Mr. Connor to task for calling a spade a spade.
Mr. Thomas raises some good points about the dismissive attitude of management towards the recording contract, and about the rumored strike. However, I think he compromises some of the rational effect those concerns might have had with asking (and leaving unanswered) a bunch of melodramatically ominous rhetorical questions. “What are his intentions?” “What are his real goals?” “Who is directing him?” “What did this president know and when did he know it?” (OK, I made the last one up. But it seemed to flow uncannily well.)
Bottom line: At best, I can’t say that I’m any more supportive of CSO after reading this than before.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I’ve seen these crises play out in many cities, including Louisville and Detroit. It is very rare that a symphony orchestra shuts down in a city the size of Columbus. (Though it did seem to happen in Miami). The corporate community of these places know that not having an orchestra at all is a major embarrassment and hurts both corporate and individual recruitment. I don’t think that actual musical quality plays much of a role here. Rather, you just need have a have a check box saying that you have an orchestra. Hence, it isn’t surprising to me that there’s a lot of interest in radical downsizing.
It is interesting to me that the budget ($12.4 million) is significantly higher than Louisville ($7), which has a solid orchestra. I wonder what what accounts for that difference?
Columbus can claim to be the indie arts capital of the world all it wants, but this looks to me like an instance of making lemonade. The traditional fine arts do not appear to be thriving in Columbus.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:57 am
READ MORE
March 16th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Columbus, speaking very generally, doesn’t seem like the kind of place that supports things that need to hold your attention for longer than a half an hour.
Unless there’s ’splosions.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
It is one thing for us on the sidelines to have such a superiority complex, but the sad truth is that the mavens and management of the CSO have the exact same opinion of their potential audience. No wonder they want the dole instead of the competing in the marketplace.
Kill the CSO. Free Classical music in Columbus.
A.
March 16th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Really? Most movies and sporting events last longer than 30 minutes.
I don’t think it’s the length that’s the matter… it’s the competition. When the symphony has to compete with everything from American Idol to Myspace to Local Art Shows, they don’t do a whole lot to stand out.
March 16th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
From what I’ve heard from my friends still working there, the symphony is in real trouble. Then again, the staff is often held in the dark more than the musicians. The current board is a problem. It operates on scare tactics and secrets, but there may actually be some truth in what they’re saying this time around.
If the Symphony goes under, it won’t be coming back. What you will have is a bunch of traveling orchestras brought in by CAPA. As David Thomas said, they kinda suck. A few are good, but CAPA won’t pay for the really good ones to come through.
I think the whole board needs to go. They push the staff and musicians in conflicting directions and then act like the musicians are to blame.
Though I worked for Mr. Beadle and I liked many of his ideas, I still believe he tried to change and implement programs without thinking about the market thoroughly (he’s from Boston and tried to do Boston things, then he hired a Marketing Director from Philly who insisted on trying East Coast marketing tactics). I really believe the audience became confused and just stopped going.
It wasn’t that long ago that this Symphony was well-supported in Columbus. Columbus is capable of supporting the CSO, but I think it’s just tired of the board and its shit. It’s a shame, but I can’t blame them.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Really? “The city would lose its soul” if the CSO shut down? No, Jim Akins would lose his job, along with lots of other people but the city would not come to a grinding halt as a result. He’s seriously disillusioned if he thinks the CSO, or any other arts organization in Columbus, is the soul of the city. If the orchestra really were any kind of important body in the eyes of the city at large, they wouldn’t be in this kind of trouble. Bloated egos led to bloated budgets, which in turn has led to unsustainable losses. Thrive At Five looks like an obvious attempt to get around GCAC’s established and prudent standards for funding and would do more harm than good if allowed to proceed as-is, taking available funds from smaller, healthier arts groups to prop up moribund relics.
I do think a healthy arts community is vital to the city, both for current residents and to attract new people. I do not think the CSO in its current size, shape and direction, is quite as vital as the musicians and administrators seem to think they are. They should have realized this years ago.
A wiser investment, in my opinion, would be to re-establish a base of musical patrons and fans by increasing spending on youth musical programs. When kids grow up knowing how truly difficult it is to play an instrument in an orchestra, they’ll appreciate the finished project that much more. However, educational funding cuts from 20 years ago may finally be showing their unintended results by producing a generation less savvy in musical performance and therefore less likely to pay money to watch one.[/b]
March 17th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I happen to think bringing in change was a good, smart thing to do. Prior to the marketing director’s arrival, the advertising and promotions were stagnant, traditional and stuffy. Attendance was already declining. Why should they have kept doing the same thing?
At least they tried change and it most definitely did not hurt them in the slightest. In fact, some of the changes they did brought in new money that the symphony would never have seen (Barbie and the Video Games show spring to mind).
March 17th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Most movies and sporting events have ’splosions.
What I am trying to say is that culturally, what the symphony has to offer holds nothing for our low-attention-span culture. On American Idol, Myspace and even at art shows, you’re pretty much looking at a different thing every 30 seconds. At the symphony you have to sit in one spot for an hour or two, usually contemplating one piece of art. A tall order for those with ADHD, which is pretty much everyone these days.
Then in Columbus you have what I call “Regular Guy Syndrome”:
“But do regular guys like it? No? Then we don’t want any.”
March 17th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I agree that shortened attention spans do play a large factor, but it’s hardly exclusive to Columbus. It’s very much an American thing. There will always be a small minority interested in such event though, so it’s going to take a restructuring to cater to that minority if the CSO wants to remain relevant.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:23 am
A few things:
I should have clarified something: I think change is good. There always needs to be the attempt to grow. Unfortunately, I think the board pushed Beadle into a lot of change that was beyond what the market and the budget could handle. He, being from a market where these things are supported, did not stand up to the changes for being irrelevant or too risky.
The marketing in the past year was practically invisible. I can’t tell you how many people asked me why the symphony wasn’t advertising.
Barbie was one of the biggest failures the symphony has ever seen. They had to give away over 350 tickets in order to get attendance to 1000, and tickets were discounted heavily the week before the show. The only reason it wasn’t canceled was a major series sponsorship by Chase bank. Video Games Live did well on campus, but the show was very costly. We wouldn’t be able to put on something like that often. The Greatest Rivalry in Sports…in Concert (The OSU/Michigan rivalry concert) didn’t come close to selling out like it should have.
That new money doesn’t return, by the way. They are one-time, specialized customers. The Video Games Live or Barbie attendees didn’t come back for Tchaik 4, Eroica, The Pointer Sisters, or Tony Bennett. Most of the regulars going to the Gala or State Streets Pops series didn’t buy for the new shows…there was little overlap or conversion.
It all comes back to my original point: the board tried to do too much too fast, and they were irresponsible. A few new things would have been great. Completely changing the season format and programming is leading to the nosedive we’re all witnessing at the moment.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am
March 17th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Okay… in other cities, do they need to have symphony events structured around Barbie, video games, movie soundtracks and the OSU/Michigan rivalry?
I will agree that it isn’t just Columbus that’s discarded classical music, though. There was a day when new orchestral compositions caused scandals (granted, horsepower meant something else at that point). These days, nobody cares about new symphonic music compositions. Unless they’re samples of violins swelling behind a rap song. I think John Cage was sort of the Sex Pistols of classical music, and that was the 60’s. Culturally, it’s just not relevant anymore. Which is a shame, but also reality. A lot of orchestral music is pastoral, we don’t live in that world anymore. Which is precisely why I still enjoy orchestral music. I might have actually gone to the symphony if it wasn’t all Pops and John Williams. But, you know, I guess they had to pay the bills.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Probably not so much in larger cities since a greater population means more support for the classic symphony as is. Perhaps in comparable cities to Columbus they probably have more of this pop-culture programming. I can’t be certain though, as I’ve never looked into it in other cities.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
The Classical music establishment made itself irrelevant:
Decadence and exclusionary navel-gazing like Cage (the opposite of the SP and Punk, btw, since anyone could do Punk and it grew on its own, but Cage was purely a product from within and not the DIY of Punk).
Whining about music education, but doing very little on their own to help keep a long term audience.
Jumping on the ‘perfection’ of CDs and going hog-wild promoting the ‘greatest’ performances which led to a winner-take-all approach as well as a dismissal of the variation of live performance.
Ham-fisted marketing, especially attempt to ‘reach-out’ to younger audiences which just come off as patronizing.
Continuing to present the music in the same form it was presented 100, 200, 300 yrs ago. Opera figured that one out - the art can carry the settings, but the setting can kill the art.
The big-time failure to recognize that talented musicians have a world of opportunities open to them now. And that audiences have a much broader world of musical performances available including all sorts of international music and not competing for those dollars. Maybe I spent my entertainment dollars on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Tallis Scholars and I will stand to the death that either option is musically and culturally as complex, lofty and valuable as any symphony.
I could go on - and did in another thread.
A.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Ok, so you caught me there. The symphony has been declining for a few years now. I don’t think the changes in the past two seasons helped the situation one bit, though.
I liked some of the new approaches. Some of it felt a little too “Rock Show” to me, but it spoke to a younger generation (people my age, I guess). Unfortunately, our older base was confused…and I think they felt betrayed. Hence, the invisibility. The younger crowd didn’t buy/see the message, and the older crowd couldn’t find it (Columbus Alive, C Magazine) or like it.
That leads to the ultimate question:
Truthfully, I just don’t know what the answer is. I want to say it’s somewhere in between the two, but this is not the budget, board, nor market to accomplish that.
I would love to do market research, starting right now, on orchestral music in the Columbus market. I want to know, once and for all, what people like, what they think, who thinks these things, and what would make a difference. Anyone posting here has probably been to a CSO concert in the past year…I want to know why others haven’t tried or aren’t coming back.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
This thread has been some fascinating reading. Thank you. I run an arts organization, Available Light Theatre company. And we’re constantly trying to crack the nuts of arts marketing, we’ve even been working with Young Isaac lately. It’s great to get some outside opinions.
On the subject of the CSO. It’s a tragedy. There are several tragedies and near-tragedies among our big arts orgs, and their inability to deal with declining audiences and recessions and the decline in corporate giving since 9/11 has been terrible to watch. Everyone who gets near a theatre in this town knows that CATCO has also almost gone out of business a number of times recently. It sucks and it is embarrassing. Cincinnati supports 4 major theatres, including a Tony winner, and we can barely keep one afloat.
As an artist (and a human being) I really feel bad for the artists being abused by bad management. Clearly, some major changes to the budget should have been made a LONG time ago. It really stinks that we’ve come to the point where cutting salaries by 50% actually seems like the magic bullet that’ll save the thing. And since management has so clearly been negligent for so long, I don’t think they deserve anymore tax-payer money. But I fear for the future. Players Theatre went under in 1992, and the theatre scene has never recovered. How would the loss of the symphony affect the future of our city?
But then you have to ask, if there aren’t enough people buying tickets to support the CSO, how valuable IS it to the community at large? I don’t go very often, but I am glad we have a symphony. I’m glad that we’re at least that cultured. It says something good about our community. But I have to admit, I don’t care enough to be a subscriber. Otherwise I would be.
As far the whole arts marketing thing. Here’s what’s been on my mind lately, my friend Brant came up with this -
“Some people like classic car shows. I do not. No matter how big and beautiful the poster for a classic car show is, no matter how many commercials I see for it, you’ll never get me to go. I’m just not a classic car show person.”
And then someone asked, “What if the Batmobile was there?”
“Okay, that I might want to see.”
March 17th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I don’t really keep up with the Classical music scene, but from what I’ve read on the subject this makes a lot of sense to me. If you don’t mind my asking, what do you envision Classical music in Columbus looking like when it’s “free”?
March 17th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I knew that would be confusing, but I wasn’t clever enough to make a better phrase.
“Free” as in liberated from the shackles of the current thinking and admining.
Not ‘free’ as in not costing anything.
A.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Oh yeah, I got that. How do you envision a “free and liberated” Classical scene?