Will 'Listen With Your Heart' help orchestra's bottom line?
The Philadelphia Inquirer Blog - Artswatch
Will 'Listen With Your Heart' help orchestra's bottom line?
Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Classical Music Critic
What does it mean that the Philadelphia Orchestra has raised $2.6 million in a month through its "Listen With Your Heart" campaign? Is that a lot of money relative to the amount the orchestra typically raises in a month? Will raising money at that pace, if it continues, avert a big deficit this season?
Unless the rate of fund-raising picks up considerably, "Listen With Your Heart" probably won't put a dent in the projected $5 million deficit for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2011.
There are reasons for the orchestra to do this campaign beyond money, to be sure.
From a community-engagement point of view, the benefits of "Listen With Your Heart" remain to be seen. The orchestra hopes the public-awareness aspect to it - signs in windows, etc. - will sell some tickets for next season. The Orchestra Association also hopes it will turn attention away from the unpleasantness of the bankruptcy case; tough labor talks with musicians; and the concessions the orchestra is hoping to extract from partners such as the Kimmel Center and Peter Nero and the Philly Pops. (An orchestra spokeswoman, by the way, said that the orchestra had not considered making the Pops part of "Listen With Your Heart.")
Of course, you might ask why the orchestra didn't do this sort of public-awareness campaign before the current crisis.
And so the question is, Why launch an initiative like this when you have only six concerts left in the season?
But back to this year's deficit. The orchestra had built into its budget projections for the year raising $18.8 million for the annual fund; with that projection, a $5 million deficit was expected. It has so far raised $15.4 million. That means between now and Aug. 31 - about 15 weeks - the orchestra must raise $3.3 million more just to reach goal. It's only after that $3.3 million is raised that the orchestra can begin to put a dent in the deficit.
In other words, to break even this year on its $46 million budget, the orchestra needs to raise $8.3 million in 15 weeks. That's a steep hill to climb. Can the city do it?
And that assumes that the expense side of the orchestra's ledger stays on budget.
(*corrected figure)
"You might ask why the orchestra didn't do this sort of public-awareness campaign before the current crisis."-exactly my thoughts. In yesterday's op/ed, Mr. Worley said that the orchestra's poor finances didn't happen overnight, yet they consistently fail to get out ahead of these problems. Also, as Mr. Dobrin points out, why start a public awareness campaign at the end of the subscription season, with a reduced Mann commitment, while the orchestra will be away for most the summer, and starts its season extremely late next year? It doesn't make any sense.— CoolZanna- What doesn't make sense is the concept : "Listen With Your Heart." Most people don't even know how to listen with their ears anymore. Up and coming generations are being raised to have a visual component with all of their music. That is why sports continue to be popular. People can watch and do not have to listen.
I have worked with affluent music students for a long time and I can attest that in such socioeconomic groups today there is very little time, interest or to study orchestral instruments in any depth much less listen to them.— wtarnoff - My heart tells me they should abort the bankruptcy filing, and use the $750/hour for their lawyers to hire an independent analyst to figure out what's wrong with the management.
My heart tells me this would be the right thing to do, even if it would be painful for certain insiders to accept potential necessary personnel changes. My heart tells me that bankruptcy is not supposed to be a tool for a 111 year old institution to escape obligations and benefit those who brought about the situation while punishing those who did well.
I'm sorry if this sounds negative, but my heart tells me this is all wrong, and that it is somehow improper.
Life is short (doomsday is tomorrow according to some) so why not do the right thing and contribute a real legacy to humanity. Make a choice, greed or great!
— Donone - Why start this campaign now? Everyone who has the wherewithal to leave the city in the summer does so. The boring go to Maine. The fun folks go to the Poconos and the Jersey beach towns. Either way, the people who might give won't even be exposed to this blitz. Stupid, ill-conceived, wrongheaded... and who did this? Whose idea? Ugh.Why should I care? Tomorrow's the 21st. So long, suckers!— xkarivalis
- "Stupid, ill-conceived, wrongheaded... and who did this? Whose idea? Ugh." The who must be Brian Tierney rubber-stamped by the board & admin. Hey - he saved the Inquirer - Don Quixote needed another challenge. I agree with Donone— salazar
- Its sad to see this whole bonanza of bad ideas- a true mark of desperation. Still the lawyer with hammers takes the cake. Here we have a world class orchestra of musicians wielding very fine instruments made by such maestros as Stradivarius and Guarneri. You pay a guy $750 an hour- a supposed maestro of the law and he opens his mouth and out comes "now we've got some hammers"! What a genius. How can a judge take him seriously?
I say give the money to an analyst and save the orchestra. I know at least one orchestra which is MUCH better off for having done that.— Donone - I don't mean to just bash the management... president Vulgamore was quoted in another article as saying that she inherited many problems. This is entirely feasible and as an outsider I have no way of knowing, but the public should see that problems have been addressed sincerely, and changes made accordingly before starting a campaign like this. Every time I read something about this I feel worried, frustrated or angry. I just want to know that there are responsible, competent people taking care of the remarkable people who are the musicians of this orchestra.— Donone
Peter Dobrin is a classical music critic and culture writer for The Inquirer. Since 1989, he has written music reviews, features, news and commentary for the paper, covering such topics as the Philadelphia Museum of Art at the Venice Biennale, expansion of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Philadelphia Orchestra's bankruptcy declaration in 2011, Philadelphia's evolving performing arts center and the general health of arts and culture.
Dobrin was a French horn player. He earned an undergraduate degree in performance from the University of Miami, and received a master's degree in music criticism from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Elliott Galkin. He has no time to practice today.
