American orchestras face great challenges and robust innovation

Reporting from the 66th Conference of the League of American Orchestras in Minneapolis St. Paul is really tricky: some 1000 participants from a broad range of orchestras are dicussing problems for orchestral organizations from the US and Canada. Volunteers, donors, board members, musicians, conductors, staff members from the fulltime professional orchestras are mixed up with those from youth orchestras, community and non permanent orchestras. There is a big awareness of the necessity of a change in business models, in safer capitalization of orchestras, in new patron models, in new accessability for audiences and in new dialogues between management and musicians before (!) collective bargaining. Two third of the major US orchestras do have a deficit in their bugdets and they will need a robust innovation. The recent bankrupty of Honolulu, staff cuts, shortening seasons, the six month strike at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the financial problems of the Philadelphia Orchestra are symptoms for the topic turmoil situation of US orchestras, after the economic downturn.

American orchestra managers do have a very special problem: nobody does want to tell bad news to his board members, donors, patrons or sponsors. Nobody wants to jeopardize giving and contributions with bad news. There was a great willingness at the conference to talk more open on the real problems of orchestras than in earlier years. There seems to be a need for the renewal of dialogue cultures in American orchestra organizations.