This is the second installment of my new series “The Art of the Deficit”. The focus of this post is to demonstrate how federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts impacts the budgets of professional orchestras. Public funding of the arts in America has a long history of being inadequate and even controversial. Unlike our counterparts in Europe where state funding of the arts is in the billions, artists in the United States are left to fend for themselves. The goal of this series is to dig deep into the reasons why many orchestras are running millions of dollars in the red year after year. When the numbers are crunched and the role of the NEA is investigated, the results are very revealing.
I had the opportunity in 2007 to attend a National Endowment for the Arts grant workshop. The workshop was a basic introduction to the NEA, what their mission is, and how one goes about submitting grants. I didn’t go for any specific project, just out of curiosity for how this agency works and how it relates to the orchestra field. What I learned was a real eye opener in terms of how the agency corresponds to the fixed cost structure of the modern symphony orchestra. After sitting through about three quarters of the presentation I had my fill and left. When I returned home, I pondered about what the real relationship was between our government and its support for the arts.
The biggest revelation of attending this workshop is that the NEA only provides grants on a project by project basis. They made it extremely clear that they do not support the daily operations of any arts group. Every grant proposal was to be in reference to a specific project. I was under the impression that they would give an orchestra funding and that the money would support the general operations of the organization. If this is the way the NEA functions, how does this relate to the bottom line of an orchestra budget?
The question I posed to myself was this. I compared the grant amount that each orchestra received with the size of their annual budget. The numbers were shocking. So small. For example, lets take the Columbus Symphony in Ohio. They are in the middle of a financial crisis right now. Their annual budget is around 12 million dollars and their 2007 grant from the NEA was $15,000. That is barely 1/8 of 1%. This is almost a negligible amount. The ratio is about the same even when you look at the big budget groups. The Los Angeles Philharmonic received the highest grant for an orchestra in 2007 at $100,000. Their budget is around 70 millions dollars. That leaves their percentage at around 1/7 of 1%. Even though something is better than nothing, the numbers and percentages are very telling.
Orchestras also have the opportunity to get government support from state and local agencies. The Columbus Symphony received a grant of $153,082 from the Ohio Arts council in 2007. This works out to be just over 1% of the total budget. Local governments(cities and counties) often have a much more difficult time giving support due to their smaller budgets and lack of resources.
The 2008 fiscal year budget for the NEA is $144.7 million, up $20 million from fiscal year 2007. Even though this slight increase is encouraging, this an extremely small number to support the thousands of artistic companies in the nation. This is to be split among every museum, dance group, library, theater group, orchestra, etc. In comparison to the 3 trillion dollar federal budget, this is a drop in the bucket. It doesn’t even compare to the payroll of the New York Yankees, which is over $200 million.
In conclusion, the lack of government support leaves the American orchestra almost completely dependent on the support of the private sector. Unlike Europe where state arts funding is commonplace, orchestras are financially on their own. Perhaps we are no different than any other business in a market economy. This is a fact of life and we have to learn to live it. The chances of any substantial increase in government funding are slim to non-existent. We need to look at different ways that orchestras can make money and offset their propensity to be millions of dollars in the red on an annual basis.
To read a complete list of NEA grants to orchestras in 2007 click here.
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.
A few years ago a very interesting universal phenomenon was discovered and reported. A note was detected coming from the Perseus cluster of galaxies. A supermassive black hole is emanating a sound wave with an unbelievable amount of energy. This pitch has been sounding for at least 2.5 billion years and it turns out that it is a B Flat. I remember the day when I read about this. Being a double bassist and usually playing the lowest sounding instrument in the orchestra , I sprang up in my chair and was fascinated. I love reading about astronomy and have always looked for links between the construction of the universe and the architecture and execution of music. There are several paths one can go down with this comparison. For the sake of time and writing space, this example is a great one on which to elaborate.
Throughout history, music and astronomy have always gone hand in hand. Man has stood gazing at the heavens and has pondered the natural world as long as we were able to do so. In the days of Ancient Greece, Pythagoras and Plato philosophized often about the Music of the Spheres. This concept was that planets orbiting around the earth produced a wonderful sound. Every celestial body had a specific ratio of distance just like the musical scale. Thus what we are left with is the divine harmony of the heavens. Galileo was raised in a musical family. Countless paintings adorn the world’s most breathtaking cathedrals with the pictures of angles playing music. With the glorious sounds of trumpets and harps, the music was in the clouds. In 1619, Johannes Kepler published Harmonices Mundi. His findings in the work correlating planetary movements with harmonic motion.
Perhaps we are returning to looking at the stars and experiencing the musical structure of the universe. The B Flat is 52 octaves lower than the piano and is not audible to the human ear. With a frequency over a million, billion times deeper than what humans can hear, it is the deepest note ever detected from an object in the Universe. Pitch and rhythm are the basic building blocks of music. Along with this sonorous Black hole, I thought it was appropriate to add a video of a Pulsar. This one comes from the Crab Nebula. This represents the pulse of the cosmos.
One can only imagine what the scientists of the past would say if they could observe these phenomena today. The instincts of man have always been connected to the harmony of the heavens and how amazing is it that we can now observed it with our own eyes. In this incredible golden age of astronomy, it is now mankind’s turn to be the audience to this cosmic, celestial symphony. Albert Einstein was also a prolific, amateur violinist. I have added one of my favorite quotes of his below.
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. … I get most joy in life out of music.” Albert Einstein
For more information about this Black Hole, you can visit NASA’s website by clicking here.
In any field of endeavor, there are a few divine gems that only come around once in many generations. Einstein in science, Mark Twain in literature, or Michealangelo in art. In the realm of classical music , the renowned conductor Carlos Kleiber was one of these amazing beings. Mysterious and aloof, this genius rocked the music world every time he was on the podium.
Son of the famed German conductor Erich Kleiber, Carlos was born Karl Ludwig Kleiber in 1930. He was born in Germany, however lived most of his childhood abroad. His father resigned from the Berlin Opera in opposition to the policies of the rising Nazi party in Germany. They fled the country in 1935 and moved to Buenos Aires. Against his father’s wishes, Carlos began studying music and later as if it was fate, became a conductor.
Carlos Kleiber lived his life away from society. Herbert von Karajan often joked that Carlos would only conduct “when his freezer was empty.” He never had an agent or signed written contracts. He preferred to negotiate himself and seal the deal with a handshake. He once told Leonard Bernstein that he wanted to grow old in a sun drenched garden, only drinking, eating, sleeping and making love. Later on in his life, he would only appear sporadically. He was often begged to come back to the podium. A famous story includes his compensation being a $100,000 Audi made to his exact specifications.
Kleiber decided that he never wanted to have a permanent position. He was the first choice to succeed Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic, and after they offered him the position he declined. He conducted all the venerated opera houses and orchestras of Europe with his specific repertoire. He was known to dislike recordings and was quoted as saying “every unproduced record is a good record.”
He only appeared in the United States a handful of times. He first concert was conducting Otello with the San Francisco Opera in 1977. In 1980 he conducted the Chicago Symphony and a few years later he conducted the Metropolitan Opera in the works of La Boheme, Otello, and Der Rosenkavalier. There is a interesting story when he made his debut at the Met. There was a tremendous amount of anticipation and excitement about the famed Kleiber coming to conduct. They scheduled extra rehearsals for this storied debut. Pavorotti was the tenor accompanied by the sublime Mirella Freni. He cancelled most of the rehearsals with the orchestra and just left the room and said see you at the concert. Kleiber was notorious for cancelling rehearsals with the anticipation of a fresh and extemporaneous concert. With Leonard Bernstein in the audience, the opera performance was amazing. The audience applause would go on and on. The legendary Maestro made his mark.
I recall several conversations I had with members of the Vienna Philharmonic about Carlos Kleiber. They spoke of him as a pure genius. One of the last concerts he did with them was Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. I remember one of their concertmasters Rainer Honeck saying to me that is was one of the best concerts of his life. He said that Kleiber thought in pictures, not words. His recording of Beethoven 5 and 7 with the Vienna Philharmonic is one of the best recordings I have ever heard. My friend and Vienna Phil violist Hans P. Ochsenhofer raved about the day they made this recording.
For more information about Carlos Kleiber click here.
For a complete discography of his recordings click here.
Here is a picture of the cover of this famous recording.
A long, bizarre journey is now in the distant past for the New Jersey Symphony. According to a news release that came out on Nov. 23, the NJSO finally sold its instrument collection which was named the “Golden Age”. To read the official press release from the NJSO click here.
There has been so many ups and downs to this situation that it is difficult to know where to start. A plethora of scenarios have been flooding the classical music world since the orchestra purchased the collection back in 2003. A whole series of unanticipated events ensued and it just went on from there. Instead of dwelling in the past, I would like to comment on the future benefits of the situation. The NJSO has recouped all of the money that has been spent during the tenure of owning the collection. This includes all the finance charges, interest fees and transaction costs. The orchestra also is going to play on 28 out of 30 of the instruments for the next 5 years. They are also a partner in the future appreciation of the collection. This leaves the organization with a balanced budget for the first time in a decade. Being the deficit-driven machines that modern day orchestras are, the loan was another liability that was a drain on the finances. Just like when a mistake is made in a concert, one needs to move on quickly and look ahead. What’s done is done. The famous makers of this collection include violins, violas and cellos from Stradivarius, Guarneri and Amati.
For more information about the New Jersey Symphony click here.
The New Jersey Symphony performs in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. This is an amazing facility that includes two concert halls. For more information on NJPAC click here.
This week the New Jersey Symphony is set to perform Gustav Mahler’s mighty Symphony #2 in C minor. The NJSO will be joined by the formidable Westminster Symphonic Choir. The New Jersey Symphony music director Neemi Jarvi is on the podium. There are two soprano soloists that are on the bill. Twyla Robinson is the soprano soloist and the mezzo soprano will be Nancy Maultsby.
I look forward to playing this concert very much. Playing Mahler Symphonies are a very interesting and unique experience. Mahler was also a conductor, as well as being a prolific composer. The detail in the work is just incredible. While visiting the State Opera House in Vienna, I was able to take a tour and see his office. It is now a museum and they have his scores out for display. They are so many colored pencils, music notes, German words written all over the music. You can really see how a conductor was composing music. Mahler conducted a lot of opera as well and even served a term as director of the Metropolitan Opera. At the same time, Toscanini was conducting the New York Philharmonic. Just imagine being in NYC back then and hearing these concerts. They were known to switch from time to time. Mahler to the Philharmonic and Toscanini to the Met. Pretty Awesome. Here is a great page to study this momentous work click here.
For concert and ticket information on these performances visit the website of the New Jersey Symphony by clicking here.
I have also added an amazing video of Claudio Abbado conducting the finale of this amazing work. Click on the video below to listen to this great recording.
This week the Pennsylvania Ballet returns to New York City Center for the first time in twenty years with two dynamic programs. The first features live orchestra in a riveting new Carmina Burana, deemed a “triumph” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and choreographed by the Company’s own Matthew Neenan. The second program features works by Balanchine, Neenan, and Val Caniparoli’s vibrant Lambarena, a celebration of African music, Classical music and dance.
I look forward to playing this tour very much. Since so much of the Broadway theater business is shut down this week due to strikes, I hope people hear about this event and substitute their plans for this exciting opportunity. It is always thrilling to be on tour with an arts group and play in a different city. I think this brings the company to a new level. When an arts group plays for a completely new audience, it forces the presenting company to be the best that they can be. It is in this elevated state of artistic awareness that the performers achieve new heights.
For more information about the Pennsylvania Ballet click here. Additional information about this weeks concerts at the New York City Center can be obtained by visiting their website here.
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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)
