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Symphony will shut down for summer with future in doubt
Thursday, May 8, 2008
BY JEFFREY SHEBAN
After 57 years of music making, including a triumphant concert in New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Columbus Symphony says it will shut down June 1.
Out of money and having failed to reach a new labor agreement with the musicians, the orchestra’s board of trustees said today that it is canceling the summer Picnic With the Pops and Popcorn Pops series and most likely its 2008-09 season, scheduled to begin in October.
Columbus would become one of the nation’s largest cities without a full-time professional orchestra.
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Symphony shuts down for summer, future in doubt
By: chaptal
Related Posts:
It is relatively easy to raise money for a new stupid enterprise.
One that has been revealed as stupid is harder. I was involved in trying to rescue a group that had pissed in the pot and it was ice-skating uphill. The word was out even to people who hadn’t given to this group before.
They will have better luck scorching it down and starting over.
Do you go or are you another sideline hand-wringer?
This city has so many bright shiny objects in its cultural crown and so many new grains of sand, we won’t really miss an old rock that was long ago hocked and replaced with a paste replica.
A.
Why doesn’t the CSO hire a guy to go after the big dollar benefactors and sell the hell out of it? It’s really not that freaking hard to generate big dollars fast in this way.
I know, right? I mean, we got 50 billion dollars to build something we don’t even have yet.
sorry, I couldn’t resist and don’t mean to go there.
I totally agree with you, though, Core. It seems like the “bigwigs” in this town have forgotten about a little thing called PR and marketing. I enjoy teh symphony and go when I can. I think thing thing nobody’s touched on is the fact that CSO supports the ballet and opera. Seems like, as much as we want to be a world-class city, we would support our cultural opportunities better.
personally, i’m really sad to see this happen. i have been a fairly regular attendee to CSO events including the classic series and picnic with the pops. i have always had a good time, and i will go enjoy the Yo Yo Ma concert this week.
at the start of all this, i was skeptical of the work of the board and managers of the organization, but the more this goes on, and the more i hear, i have become jaded to the “plight” of the musicians. they seem to be out of touch with the reality of the columbus classical music scene. the money isn’t there to continue with a $12+ million budget. i hope that something happens to bring this all around, but i think we may see this whole thing crumble before it is rebuilt. so sad.
Article from the NY Times…
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/arts/music/10colu.html?scp=1&sq=hirokami&st=nyt[/url]
this is so sad.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
BY JIM WEIKER AND JEFFREY SHEBAN
Junichi Hirokami is out to prove he can drive with the best of them.
Hours after playing his first-ever round of golf, the music director of the Columbus Symphony rubbed elbows with 160 arts patrons at a Worthington Hills Country Club fundraiser for the orchestra.
“I really want to save this orchestra,” he said, waiting to tee off in the sunshine Tuesday. “It may be too late, but I won’t give up. I’m still hoping for a miracle.”
The country-club event is one of many recent public efforts to bolster support for the symphony, which is scheduled to perform its final concert May 31.
Whether such eleventh-hour initiatives will make a difference remains to be seen, given the multimillion-dollar deficit predicted for the 2008-09 season, which has been canceled.
READ MORE
Written by Ian Williams
vnunet.com, 15 May 2008
Honda’s Asimo robot has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at a special performance with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Asimo performed The Impossible Dream from the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha to a packed hall of music lovers and students.
Before starting the piece, Asimo greeted the audience with a friendly wave saying “Hello everyone.”
The robot then conducted the orchestra, gesturing with one or both hands and nodding its head as appropriate, and taking a bow at the end of the performance to applause and shouts from the crowd.
“It is absolutely thrilling to perform with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. This is a magnificent concert hall,” said Asimo after the performance.
Although an impressive feat, Asimo cannot actually respond to the orchestra. The performance was achieved by mimicking the actions of a video of Detroit Symphony’s education director Charles Burke performing the same piece six months earlier.
READ MORE
I’m not well informed as to the fundraising process of the symphony. I do have to wonder where Hirokami was when the ship started to sink. Was he aware of what was happening to his orchestra? Is his going out and shaking hands and hoping a check is in it afterwards a new thing for him to be doing?
Friday, May 16, 2008
BY JEFFREY SHEBAN
A key source of public funding is drying up for the Columbus Symphony because of the likelihood that there’ll be no 2008-09 season.
Earlier this week, the grants committee of the Greater Columbus Arts Council recommended no longer giving money to the symphony, which last year received $261,417.
“We shouldn’t be giving operational support to an organization that’s not going to be here after June 1,” said council President Bryan W. Knicely.
READ MORE
Saturday, May 17, 2008
BY JEFFREY SHEBAN
Like any good conductor, Junichi Hirokami knows the score: In life, as in music, lows follow the highs. Such was his fate early yesterday.
Hours after leading the Columbus Symphony and renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma in a classical-season finale, Hirokami sat alone on a steel bench at Port Columbus, waiting to return to his native Japan.
He wondered whether he was leaving Columbus for good.
“I want to come back, but I leave it to the people,” he said. “God’s saying, ‘Junichi, don’t give up.’ “
READ MORE
An interesting blog from a member of the CSO:
Starting his performing career directly after undergraduate studies, he won a position with the Greensboro Symphony in 1982. The next year he was offered the principal position of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra in Washington, DC. The grueling demands of opera and ballet repertoire honed his skills as a versatile player. In 1989, he won the principal clarinet position of the Columbus Symphony in Ohio.
http://glitteringstew.com/reed
This has been repeated before. And the fact that no corporations have stepped in to take what would seem to be certain showers of praise makes me think something’s not right. So help me understand this. If the CSO fails, then the board is board of nothing? Why not step down and allow fresh blood or a new management structure take over? What keeps them on the sinking ship amidst comments like this?
Also, a couple weeks back, a pair of OSU students organized a trip with a few buses full of students to a performance. Kudos for the effort, but it seems to me that that should have been a tradition all along (at least until it becomes a few streetcars full!). I’m not singling out blame here (blame all around, I say) just whining.
Also, someone mentioned price somewhere, but the rear balcony is about $18 with student price half that. I don’t think ticket price is a major problem.
But then I stumbled across this discussion from Cincy which suggests I’m wrong:
http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/classical/2008/03/death-knell-for-columbus-symphony.asp
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
by Matt Burns
Columbus Symphony Orchestra musicians have cued up a cost-cutting proposal they say would allow the struggling group to open its season this fall, including a concession to trim their salaries by about 7 percent.
But they said that can happen only if the symphony, buckling under the weight of seven-figure deficits in recent years, cuts expenses that have caused millions in cost overruns in recent years.
Symphony musicians on Tuesday unveiled a proposed $11.1 million budget that takes into account the $9.5 million the group’s board claims is the level of public support for the symphony, plus an estimated $1.6 million in in-kind donations, the annual average in past years. The proposal allots $5 million in compensation for the 53 staff musicians, representing an overall $500,000 savings and a 6.5 percent to 7 percent salary cut for each player, said Jim Akins, principal tuba player and chair of the orchestra committee.
READ MORE
Monday, May 26, 2008
BY JEFFREY SHEBAN
Musicians and other employees of the Columbus Symphony won’t be the only ones suffering financially if the next orchestral season is canceled.
The operator of the Ohio Theatre could be out $800,000 if the symphony bypasses its 2008-09 season, which normally runs for 26 weeks starting in October.
“A dark Ohio will be a real challenge for us and all of Downtown,” said Bill Conner, president and chief executive of the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts.
CAPA, which operates the Ohio, Palace, Southern and other theaters in Columbus and Connecticut, is already owed $375,000 by the symphony for theater rent and office space for the current season, which ends Saturday.
The symphony says it’s broke and can’t pay.
READ MORE
Thursday, May 29, 2008
by Matt Burns
With the Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s season swan song days away and contentious contract talks far from over, the group’s musicians are asking the board to come back to the table with the slate wiped clean and a non-binding third-party mediator in place.
The proposal, unveiled Thursday as the symphony prepares for its last performances of the season this weekend, is one Board Chairman Robert “Buzz” Trafford said the group is actively considering. But with the symphony’s outdoor summer series canceled and a fall season opening in limbo, he said an offer to take all previous proposals off the table and bring in a third party likely won’t have the desired effect the musicians are seeking – prolonging the season past its planned June 1 suspension date.
READ MORE
Why bother with non-binding arbitration? The third party could be King Solomon himself and either the musicians or the management would find fault with the wisdom and equity of the decision and refuse to cooperate.
Sarah Minor
Issue date: 5/29/08
Ohio State students attended the Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s last classical concert of the season May 10th. For financial reasons, CSO has canceled its summer concerts which has brought disappointment to Matthew Brahms and Julianne Akins, music majors at OSU.
Not only did OSU students support the city’s orchestra, but one of the founders of Symphony Strong, Matthew Brahms, is related to the famous composer, Johannes Brahms, the latter being his great-great-great uncle.
READ MORE
Sunday, June 1, 2008
BY TIM FERAN
“This is starting to feel like a telethon,” Marvin Hamlisch said to laughter and some tears during last night’s season finale — and perhaps ultimate finale — for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
Hamlisch spoke for many during the performance at the Ohio Theatre, which was filled with movie and Broadway favorites that often hinted at endings while simultaneously proclaiming hope for new beginnings.
Hamlisch, who spoke in between each piece, dedicated his performance “to a whole new way of doing things in this place so they’ll get it right the next time.”
READ MORE
Friday, June 13, 2008
BY JEFFREY SHEBAN
With or without the Columbus Symphony, the show will go on next season for its youth orchestras.
“It’s too important to let it go,” said Debby Rosenthal, who administers four groups of young players for the symphony, which has suspended operations.
“I’m confident there will be a season next year.”
Symphony leaders, including Rosenthal, met with 125 parents last week to review options, which could include higher tuition fees, independent fundraising and a bigger role for parent volunteers.
People left the meeting hoping for the best but wondering what the future holds for the 300 young musicians who will participate this year.
READ MORE
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The Ohio Arts Council has provisionally approved the second year of a sustainability grant for the troubled Columbus Symphony.
The $136,947 grant — which comes after one of $154,907 — would be issued if the orchestra confirmed a 2008-09 season and developed a debt-reduction plan.
Furthermore, the orchestra wouldn’t be able to request a partial payment until after completing half of its season and spending half of the grant amount.
READ MORE
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
BY TIM FERAN AND JEFFREY SHEBAN
Columbus Symphony musicians have rejected a contract offer from the symphony board that would have cut salaries and caused the firing of Music Director Junichi Hirokami.
E-mail obtained by The Dispatch indicates that the latest proposal — the result of two days of mediated negotiations last week — called for a four-year pact.
In the first year, the musicians would have been paid an average salary of $40,265; and by the fourth year, $45,292.
The 27 percent decrease is less than the 40 percent reduction previously requested by the board.
To cover the $300,000 difference between the old and new salary offers, the board sought musician support for Hirokami’s dismissal.
READ MORE
If the musicians really feel that the musical director does a lot more than conducting (like community outreach,) then why does Junichi Hirokami live in Tokyo and not Columbus?