Viva Verdi! Opera New Jersey is set to perform one of Verdi’s magnificent masterpieces. Rigoletto abounds with countless familiar arias such as La Donne e Mobile, Questo e Quello, Caro Nome and the wonderful famous quartet Bella Figlia. You can listen to these arias by clicking on the highlighted text. There are three performances scheduled in three different venues. The first performance is on Feb 1 at 8 P.M. in Morristown, NJ. The second performance is Feb 8 at 7:30 P.M. at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, and we finish on Feb 10 with a matinee at 3 o’clock at the State Theater in New Brunswick. To read more about the exceptional cast click here.
I look forward to playing Rigoletto again. This is my second time tackling this mighty work. It is really an outstanding piece of art with many heavenly moments. The word we hear over and over again is maledizione. Maledizione in Italian means curse, doom or malediction. While living in Italy for a summer playing at the Spoleto Festival, I came across an interesting story. There is a 13th century aqueduct in Spoleto that spans the valley imbetween two beautiful hills. It is a breathtaking site. One of the best foods I have ever tasted there was wild boar-cingale. These cingale live underneath this ancient aqueduct. It just so happens that the people of Spoleto have believed for centuries that this area under the aqueduct was cursed. The curse is what lures the cingale to live there. I said jokingly to my Spoletino native friend Lorenzo in Italian “C’e un maledizione la?(There is a curse there?) He replied “Si Giovanni, c’e un maledizione”(Yes Giovanni, there is a curse.) I was just joking about Rigoletto. However it turns many of the Spoletini will not go under the aqueduct. They wait for the cingale to venture out before they hunt them. It was like living inside Rigoletto. A real life curse. Awesome. I tip my hat to those who still believe in these ancient spells. Cingale anyone?
This is a new series that I am launching on the blog. The intention of “The Art of the Deficit” is to focus on the business aspect of the orchestra world. I have always been interested in the way that these institutions operate (or don’t operate) and the dysfunction that surrounds their work. Mismanagement and orchestras are two words that seem to go together. As an orchestral musician, I can’t even count the times when I heard people say “That group was mismanaged” or “they ran the group into the ground” Due to my entrepreneurial nature, I have always been interested in what makes business’s work and how they operate behind the scenes. When it comes to orchestras, what I found when I started studying their business models was intriguing. After observing the landscape in the late 1990’s I finally said to myself “What is really going on here?”
During my final year as a member with the New World Symphony, I observed the Florida Philharmonic heading towards financial ruin. I auditioned for the group twice and had many colleagues of mine from New World won auditions there and joined the orchestra. One day while reading the local newspaper I saw a headline that left an indelible imprint on me. It read something like this “The Florida Phil needs $500,000 in 48 hours” They needed this to make payroll. I sat there and wondered what an experienced business person would think when they read this. I was shocked by the financial desperation that this group was going through. What if I won that audition and that was my job. What would I do if my employer vanished like a puff of smoke? It is not like musicians can just go get another job. Seeing this with my own eyes was a very powerful experience.
When you peel away some of the layers, you see that these institutions are tremendously expensive to operate. At times they almost look like unfunded liabilities. If you have 100 musicians in the ensemble making $90,000 a year, that is $9 million dollars just for the musicians. Conductor salaries are in the millions and the big name soloists can garner $50,000 to $75,000 dollars a performance. Everyone knows that tickets sales barely cover anything. Any orchestra is lucky if a 1/3 of their costs are covered from ticket revenue. I personally think they bolster this percentage in order to make it seem like they have more money coming in from tickets than they really do.
Having experience producing concerts and paying musicians, I was startled to be on the other side and see how lopsided the cost structure is. I still remember the day when I had my “Revenue Epiphany” Revenue is the most important thing to an enterprise. Revenue is defined as the amount of money coming in. Now I realized why earnings on Wall Street are so important. Understanding that this is an artistic endeavour and cultural institutions are not publicly traded corporations, the money coming in is just as important. I think we are at a point now where the cost structures of these orchestras are hitting a wall. It is like a ship. Once you move all the furniture to one side, the momentum starts pulling you over. If the cash flow out consistently exceeds the cash flow in you are in trouble. It is like trying to stop a leak in a dam with your finger.
In the old days, one angel donor would write a check at the end of the fiscal year without questions asked and that would erase the structural damages for that budget cycle. That was easier when the deficits weren’t in the millions. Most of these issues were probably kept behind closed doors and not made accessible to the public. This is the beauty of the information age. In the past, one would have to go to a library and look up some 1000 page book on the top of a dusty case to look up financial info from a previous year. One of my goals of this series is to be a real time observer to financial situation of orchestras. Since all professional orchestras are 501-C3 non profits, their information is in the public domain.
This will be an exciting adventure to say the least. Since this is my business, it is also very personal. The epidemic of structural deficits is upon us and needs to be dealt with. The last thing we want for musicians is their orchestra vanishing from the face of the earth. Even though deficit spending is an addiction in our modern day society, it does not absolve the orchestra industry of its personal responsibility for its own financial health.
For a animated version of the picture at the top of the post CLICK HERE!!!
In 1994 to 2004, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation set out on an ambitious task to study and fund the world of the American Symphony Orchestra. The decade long $13 million initiative focused on many activities; some of which are the relationship the organizations had with audiences, fundraising, programming and the role of the musicians themselves. There is a tremendous amount of information in this prolific endeavour. I want to focus on a specific study that was commissioned early in the start of this enterprise.
In 2000, the Knight Foundation commissioned a study of orchestras and the public that they serve. The study was called “How Americans Relate to Classical Music and Their Local Orchestras” It was conducted by the research firm Audience Insight, LLC. and involved 25,000 people in 15 different markets. This specific research activity was the largest discipline specific study of arts consumers ever completed in the United States. The results were quite interesting.
Here is an excerpt from John Bare on the Knight Foundation website:
“Using different sets of measures to identify potential classical music consumers, the study explored adults’ affinity for classical music and then their ties to a specific orchestra. Crisscrossing these two dimensions, the study produced a market segmentation model that categorizes potential classical consumers into one of eight “prospect” groups. In all, about 27 percent of adults are prospects for their local orchestras. The rest of the adult population has so little interest in classical music that they cannot be considered likely customers for local orchestras.The top prospects fall into a group called Captured Prospects — people who are current subscribers or single-ticket buyers who attended a local orchestra concert more than once in the preceding year. That group is very small. The 15 orchestras attract only between 2 and 4 percent of adults in their communities on any sort of a regular basis. The second group, Low-Frequency Alumni of the orchestras studied, includes consumers who have been to a concert by the specific local orchestra at least once but now attend seldom if ever. That group is larger, about 15 percent of adults in communities of the orchestras studied. They’re considered prospects because they have had a trial experience with the orchestra at some point as an adult.Another 8 percent are the group called Uninitiated Prospects — adults who may have never attended a concert by the local orchestra, but who indicate they have a close relationship with classical music. Some, for instance, have friends and family members who attend concerts.”
The statistic that had an indelible imprint on my mind when I first was aware of this study is that subscribers and single ticket buyers to the symphony are 2 to 4 percent of the population on average. Noting that this is a niche marketplace industry, having a 2-4% market share is a tight spot. This leaves 96% of the population of this country not regularly attending or even thinking about attending concerts. The classical music industry has a mentality that it is the end all, be all of culture. Music conservatories add to this false belief that the world revolves around their art form. Well, here it is folks. Market share is so important in business and every CEO in the world is obsessed with increasing it. I guess the good news is that if we increase ours by 1%, the effects could be amazing. On the flip side, if we slip by 1% the results could be devastating. In addition, another amazing statistic is that 74% of orchestra ticket buyers played an instrument or performed vocal music at some point in their life.
A very exciting musical event is on the horizon in the City of Brotherly Love. The Philadelphia based string trio Time for Three has a world premier on the tip of their fingers. Starting on January 10th, they will be performing a brand new work written especially for them with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The piece is called Concerto 4-3- for string trio and orchestra and it is composed by Philadelphia’s own Jennifer Higdon. Maestro Christoph Eschenbach will be conducting.
Time for Three is an exciting, groundbreaking group of three suberb musicians. The make up of the group is 2 violinists and one double bass. Zachary De Pue and Nick Kendall rock the violin, while my dear friend Ranaan Meyer is the mighty and gregarious bass player. These three formidable artists met and formed at the Curtis Institute of Music. The quote below is a great way of explaining the talent and virtuosity of these electrifying musicians.
“Simply put, they’re a knockout! Three benevolent monsters, monsters of ability and technique surely. But also conveyers of an infectious joy that I find both touching and moving. I would recommend them not only for entertainment value, but also for anyone looking to see how all types of American Music can develop, when life and passion such as this are breathed into it.” –Sir Simon Rattle
Here are a few words that composer Jennifer Higdon had to say about the piece:
“Concerto 4-3 is written specifically for, and dedicated to, Time for Three.The three-movement work uses the language of classical music coming from the standard classical sound, but with an American –Coplandesque — rhythm and sensibility. There are also dashes of ‘bluegrass’ technique, to highlight the virtuosity and energy of this inspiring group. Being aware of all of the different types of music that they play (bluegrass, rock, Bach, Beatles), gave me a starting point of inspiration for creating a work that would show off their soulful musicality and skill”
I look forward to this concert with great excitement. I recently went to one of their performances in the Philly area and I enjoyed the concert immensely. There are so many things one can elaborate on when trying to describe very unique talents. Time for Three has such an organic nature to themselves. The originality and charisma of the group is what I find to be so engaging. Perhaps I am fortunate to know them very well. Their personalities bleed into the music they create as well as their pure love for music itself. Besides their affinity for the music, one can sense how much they love playing for the audience. For more information about this weeks concerts click here. To learn more about Time for Three you can visit their website here or their MySpace page by clicking here. You can explore the works and bio of Jennifer Higdon by visiting her website JenniferHigdon.com.
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About John Grillo
John started playing Double Bass at the age of 11. He attended The Julliard School during high school and was a scholarship student at Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana where he studied with Lawrence Hurst. After graduating from IU, he attended the Manhattan School of Music completing his Masters Degree. (more)
