Robert Levine has been burning the midnight oil analyzing the recent Flanagan report [available here] and musing about the best method of determining the future of a given orchestra.  Highly recommended reading.

- Baumol was wrong

- First take on Flanagan, Part I

Former ASOL and Chicago Symphony president Henry Fogel weighs in on the Flanagan Report.

What I have learned, in four years of visiting and spending a day with 125 different American symphony orchestras, is that it is impossible to generalize - but that a great many of them have been very smart, very flexible, and dynamic in dealing with different economic conditions. Orchestras that are attentive to changing demands and the very nature of their audiences are not only maintaining but increasing attendance. Orchestras attentive to their entire communities (beyond just their subscribers) are also raising more money, and operating in fiscally balanced ways. As I said earlier, Prof. Flanagan’s report is a valuable addition to the research that has been done about orchestras, and will provide the field with useful information that will be of use in continuing to adapt to our environment as it changes. But anyone who draws from it the conclusion that orchestras are in peril runs the risk of subjecting themselves to Mark Twain’s famous quote: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

I just received a press release from the Oregon Symphony outlining improved ticket sales (up only slightly from last year, but with six fewer concerts (36 vs. 39) presented it represents greater attendance per concert). Read the complete release below. [Read more →]

From Think Denk:

 (Washington, DC) Former Senator George J. Mitchell released a blistering report Thursday that tied 89 performers of so-called “Classical Music,” including Mitsuko Uchida, to the use of illegal, non-musical cultural performance-enhancers. The report used informant testimony and supporting documents to provide a richly detailed portrait of what Mr. Mitchell described as “classical music’s thinking era.”The Mitchell report ran about 400 pages and was based on interviews with more than 700 people, including 60 former “classical” musicians, and 115,000 pages of documents. Ms. Uchida was the most prominent name on a list that included seven other most valuable players as well as players from all instruments of the orchestra, with the exception of the tuba.