Can Portland afford the Oregon Symphony as it currently exists?<\/p>\n
There – that’s the elephant in the room.\u00c2\u00a0 The question that is probably on everyone’s lips who has a real stake in keeping the Oregon Symphony a vital and powerful force in the cultural scene of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.\u00c2\u00a0 Is it a moot point that, regardless of the generally horrible state of the economy right now, the symphony as it is composed right now is unsustainable?\u00c2\u00a0 And Portland is all about sustainability, right?<\/p>\n
Should the symphony only play symphonic concerts?\u00c2\u00a0 Should we play opera and ballet, too?\u00c2\u00a0 Would that make our operations more sustainable (if less ethical)?\u00c2\u00a0 Or should we go to a multi-tier contract, with a small core of full-time players, expanded to part timers for larger repertoire pieces?\u00c2\u00a0 Or should we cut weeks, and play only when audiences want to come inside rather than enjoy that nice spring weekend evening?<\/p>\n
The thing is, I know that Portland wants a full-time symphony orchestra with the best players that it can attract (because if a multi-tier orchestra were made, all those part time players would leave in a heartbeat), that plays at a world-class standard, and doesn’t predate on the work of our union brothers and sisters.\u00c2\u00a0 But the question remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can Portland afford the Oregon Symphony as it currently exists? There – that’s the elephant in the room.\u00c2\u00a0 The question that is probably on everyone’s lips who has a real stake in keeping the Oregon Symphony a vital and powerful force in the cultural scene of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.\u00c2\u00a0 Is it a moot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[103,61,25,1088,2],"tags":[3668],"class_list":["post-2229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fundraising","category-oregon","category-portland","category-recession","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-oregon-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-zX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13009,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/18\/portland-indies-oregon-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":0},"title":"Portland indies @ Oregon Symphony","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The band Black Prairie setting up and talking with conductor Jeff Tyzik at this morning's rehearsal. The show is Saturday night, and tickets are available online at www.orsymphony.org or at the door the night of the show. Concert is at 7:30 pm.","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7510,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/04\/17\/two-mini-bombshells\/","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":1},"title":"two mini bombshells","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 17, 2012","format":"aside","excerpt":"Just learned of these two news items in the local Portland classical scene via the always excellent Oregon ArtsWatch: Huw Edwards, conductor of the Portland Columbia Symphony for the past 12 seasons, will resign his position effective the end of this season. Huw has been a nearly constant presence in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":495,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/17\/losing-ground\/","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":2},"title":"losing ground?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"David Stabler reports this morning that the Oregon Bach Festival will open its 2008 season by performing a concert (Bach's B-minor Mass) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland.\u00c2\u00a0 What next?\u00c2\u00a0 Will the Eugene Symphony start a series in the Oregon Symphony's home hall?\u00c2\u00a0 The Seattle Symphony?\u00c2\u00a0 It's frustrating,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2921,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/29\/how-oregon-is-the-oregon-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":3},"title":"how ‘oregon’ is the oregon symphony?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"After reading David Stabler's story yesterday on the cutting of the Oregon Symphony's nationally-renowned Community Music Partnership, which provided a year-long musical interaction between OSO musicians and a different rural community each year, I've been pondering the following question: should the Oregon Symphony still be called the Oregon Symphony?\u00a0 We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "education"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"oregon-map","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/oregon-map-400x255.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":470,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/06\/marthas-obituary\/","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":4},"title":"martha’s obituary","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Courtesy of Niel Deponte, OSO principal percussionist Martha Herby, 1951 - 2007 by Niel dePonte, Principal Percussion, Oregon Symphony Martha Herby, 55, became the Second Flutist of the Oregon Symphony in 1981 and also served as the Acting Principal Flute of the symphony on many occasions. She was a graduate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2950,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/05\/oregon-symphony-education-programs-not-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":5},"title":"oregon symphony: education programs not dead","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In response to inquiries that resulted from David Stabler's article about the suspension of the OSO's widely lauded Community Music Partnership program, the symphony's development department released the following statement of clarification: To our Foundation and Government Supporters: Last week, this article ran in the Oregonian (see link to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "education"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}