2012 News Milestone No. 6

Philadelphia Orchestra Emerges from Bankruptcy in a
Season of General Retrenchment for American Orchestras
Despite widespread fiscal 2012 deficits, endowment raids, pay and benefit cuts for musicians, fewer weeks of work, and the shrinking of orchestral rosters, most cities don’t appear willing to ditch their orchestras, and some, like hard-pressed Detroit, are on the arts upswing.

In emerging from 15 months of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Philadelphia Orchestra must top its usual fund-raising by an extra $25 million in the next 12 months and by $45 million over next four years to stay afloat. A daunting prospect, but the incentive seems to be there: New music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin capped his first subscription concerts with his new Philly band by taking it to Carnegie Hall, where the New York Times critic James R. Oestreich said the “great orchestra…has seldom sounded greater.”

Impact: Months of bad news stories raised concerns that the trend was self-perpetuating, leaving industry leaders anxious to get out good news stories such as Houston Symphony’s five-year plan, launched in April 2010, which was still on track in 2012 with recordbreaking funding efforts.

Still, it was a very tough year, with a lockout in Atlanta, followed by a management shakeup; a lockout that ended amidst continuing financial uncertainty in Indianapolis; and dark months in both Minneapolis and Saint Paul, where October lockouts were extended through the end of the year. There were other stalemates also.

Current status: Although no orchestra was left unscathed by the Great Recession, the worst beatings have been taken in the second and third tiers, where boom-time construction projects and ambitious artistic expansion created new debt atop shakybusiness models. The proposed cuts on the table in Minnesota—salaries reduced from $135,000 to $89,000 with additional benefit cuts valued at $30,000—are nearly as draconian as those accepted by Detroit musicians to keep their orchestra afloat. Meanwhile, fiscal 2011 operating deficits were recently reported in many orchestras including Baltimore ($750,000), Chicago ($1.3 million), and Pittsburgh ($3.5 million). Nobody’s out of the woods yet.

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