{"id":2563,"date":"2009-05-19T13:25:23","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T20:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=2563"},"modified":"2009-05-19T13:25:23","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T20:25:23","slug":"uncertain-times-as-the-season-comes-to-a-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/19\/uncertain-times-as-the-season-comes-to-a-close\/","title":{"rendered":"uncertain times as the season comes to a close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night was the final concert of our classical series for the 2008-2009 concert season.\u00c2\u00a0 The performances by Joshua Bell in the Mendelssohn violin concerto were amazing and inspiring each and every night, and the Bruckner Seventh Symphony was powerful and yes, very long, too.\u00c2\u00a0 Audience response was great, and each night was very nearly sold out (at least the first half, a few people were clearly there only to see Bell perform).\u00c2\u00a0 But the season, rather than ending on a note of triumph and optimism as one would expect, is instead bittersweet:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The orchestra has never sounded better.<\/li>\n<li>We&#8217;ve been invited to perform at Carnegie Hall in 2011.<\/li>\n<li>Ticket sales are at an all-time high.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But, we&#8217;re in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Donations are down, corporate giving is down, Oregon is suffering the second-highest rate of unemployment in the nation at 12 percent and faces a current $4.2 billion budget shortfall.\u00c2\u00a0 While other parts of the country are already looking forward to the beginnings of an upswing in the fourth quarter of 2009, the likelihood is that Oregon will lag behind the nation in recovery just as it lagged behind entering the recession.<\/p>\n<p>What does all of this mean for the Oregon Symphony?\u00c2\u00a0 I don&#8217;t know.\u00c2\u00a0 I know that the players are ready to help in any reasonable way that we can.\u00c2\u00a0 Elaine Calder is doing an amazing job of running the orchestra &#8211; if we weren&#8217;t in this world-wide mess right now, it&#8217;s very possible that the orchestra would be on its way to strong growth and retiring some of the accumulated deficit in the next season or so.\u00c2\u00a0 But for now we&#8217;re in survival mode.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s true &#8211; we&#8217;re working our asses off just to keep the enterprise going at this point.<\/p>\n<p>So, as Elaine said during her pre-concert remarks this weekend, if you get a mailing or a call from the symphony asking for whatever help you can give &#8211; please consider digging deep and giving what you can.\u00c2\u00a0 Five dollars would be greatly appreciated, as would $5000.\u00c2\u00a0 Each according to their means.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot make it without your support, now more than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night was the final concert of our classical series for the 2008-2009 concert season.\u00c2\u00a0 The performances by Joshua Bell in the Mendelssohn violin concerto were amazing and inspiring each and every night, and the Bruckner Seventh Symphony was powerful and yes, very long, too.\u00c2\u00a0 Audience response was great, and each night was very nearly [&hellip;]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[103,115,1088,2],"tags":[3668],"class_list":["post-2563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fundraising","category-music","category-recession","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-oregon-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-Fl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3981,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/04\/joshua-bell-plays-lalo\/","url_meta":{"origin":2563,"position":0},"title":"joshua bell plays lalo","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This YouTube video gives a unique perspective on a recent Bell performance of Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, which he'll perform with the Oregon Symphony next season - from the point of view of a seat within the orchestra.\u00a0 Enjoy.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;soloists &amp; recitals&quot;","block_context":{"text":"soloists &amp; recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7252,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/18\/bells-and-brass\/","url_meta":{"origin":2563,"position":1},"title":"bells and brass","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There were two major highlights to last weekend's classical series concerts with the Oregon Symphony: Joshua Bell and our brass section. Due to changes in his calendar, Bell dropped the Shostakovich First Violin Concerto for the Brahms Violin Concerto. Basically, he was to perform the piece publicly for the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;soloists &amp; recitals&quot;","block_context":{"text":"soloists &amp; recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/joshuabell3-250x182.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5321,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/17\/critical-mass\/","url_meta":{"origin":2563,"position":2},"title":"critical mass","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"There was a review of last night's concert by James McQuillen, which you can find here at the Oregonian's website.\u00a0 I was interested to find that there was a pretty quick followup comment by \"clarities\" - I'll quote the first paragraph here: If it's true that \"Carlos Kalmar intends for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;appreciation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":425,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/09\/02\/waterfront-concert\/","url_meta":{"origin":2563,"position":3},"title":"waterfront concert","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry to be late with this posting, but life intervened and it wasn't possible to get time to do an entry on this right after the fact. Last Thursday night we had our \"coming out\" party of the new season - the annual concert at Tom McCall Waterfront Park downtown.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;the orchestra world&quot;","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":5314,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/16\/gala-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":2563,"position":4},"title":"gala night!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight marks the official opening of the Oregon Symphony season - it's the gala concert with violin soloist Joshua Bell.\u00a0 The concert is selling well, but there seem to be tickets at all price levels available, so grab one or two quickly if you're so inclined. The Lalo Symphonie Espagnole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;soloists &amp; recitals&quot;","block_context":{"text":"soloists &amp; recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Joshua-Bell-photo-002-e1265300723916.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5206,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/08\/24\/on-the-cusp-of-a-new-season\/","url_meta":{"origin":2563,"position":5},"title":"on the cusp of a new season","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A week from tomorrow my fifteenth season with the Oregon Symphony begins.\u00a0 I wrote a post last winter about the concerts that I was most looking forward to in this coming year, and since then there have been some noteworthy additions to the concert calendar.\u00a0 Here they are Classical Rufus\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;the orchestra world&quot;","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/4440298927_cef3350489-250x204.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2563","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=2563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}