Brian Rood, member of the Kansas City Symphony and ICSOM President, has written an interesting and accessible analysis of the methodology, history and findings of the by now practically infamous Flanagan Report. You can read it in its entirety after the jump. [Read more →]

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.”

As I write this, there are two orchestras in the U.S. which are currently facing an existential crisis. The Columbus Symphony and the Shreveport Symphony are both facing cuts which will forever alter how they function, sound, raise money, and basically exist.

Over the past week, two fellow violists/bloggers have written posts about the situation, both about these two orchestras and a new study which suggests that US orchestras are based upon an untenable model. [Read more →]