Updates: Red Cross, Robertson v. Princeton, symphonies

Quick updates tonight on some subjects previously covered here:

The American Red Cross, it turns out, has to get formal permission from the U.S. Congress in order to reorganize themselves into a normal non-profit structure. That's because of the organization's special disaster-response status granted by Congress decades ago. It sounds like the legislators are receptive to the basic premise that the organization's outdated governance structure is the root of its recent troubles including losing three CEOs since 1999. The current board chair told a House committee that the proposed changes have helped lured some strong candidates for the job.

Princeton University has quietly (at least they wanted it to be quietly) reimbursed the Robertson Foundation almost $800,000 which the university can't bring itself to admit was used contrary to donor intent. (Rather, they say its because university officials failed to properly disclose the use of those funds.) This move has not taken any steam out of the huge lawsuit being pursued by the Robertson heirs; in the court of public opinion, Princeton just continues to shoot itself in the foot.

And the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has summarized its hard-earned knowledge about the state of symphony orchestras into a short "issue brief" which should be required reading for everyone involved in classical music today. They do not pull any punches, and their core messages continue to remind me of some of the existing thinking and practices in other fields such as non-profit theater and dance. "Classical music lovers are everywhere, but most of them are not in the local concert halls....Interest in the art form looks healthy. Yet orchestras are struggling to remain relevant in a rapidly-evolving cultural landscape...."

Are symphonies doomed?

I've noted here that some folks in the classical-music world think that the ongoing struggles of a lot of professional symphonies and opera companies are solveable, perhaps by looking harder at the field's conventional wisdom, but it's worth noting at least one expert in the field who thinks otherwise. Former Wall Street Journal music critic Greg Sandow, himself a trained singer and composer who is married to a New York Times critic, thinks that "reasonably soon, the era of classical music will be over."

After a reader responded by noting the outstanding online sales results for classical pieces, Sandow replied that sales of recordings can't support the costs of producing the music. For me that reveals some shortsightedness in his thinking, but anyway some readers more knowledgeable than I posted some interesting thoughtful responses on that blog linked above. I learned of Sandow's writing from the Artful Manager, which I can't recommend highly enough to anyone with an interest in today's arts world.

Meanwhile I came across a couple of fun news items about innovation and creativity in the world of opera. The Metropolitan Opera in New York is doing some cool stuff like a free live simulcast of its opening night outdoors at the Lincoln Center. And in San Diego there are now several restaurants regularly holding opera open-mic nights which I'm guessing could be either fun or dreadful for patrons on any given night...but regardless it also seems like a good sign of grass-roots vitality for the art form.

Outreach does not build audiences?

Classical music keeps popping up as a topic in the not-for-profit sector these days, and it's not all about big established institutions: turns out that at least in Chicago and New York there is now a thriving alternative classical-music scene. Not being a big classical fan myself I wasn't really aware of this in Chicago until taking my present job, in which capacity I've become acquainted with the dozens of small independent chamber music, opera, symphony and classical-dance groups around here. There are more than 300 non-profit music organizations in the Chicago region now, not even counting the non-profit multipurpose arts councils and such.

Meanwhile the world of big orchestras is abuzz right now with some startling conclusions of a huge long-term experiment by the large James S. and John L. Knight Foundation. Having spent 10 years and $13 million investing in audience-building efforts by a dozen symphonies around the country, the foundation commissioned a frank assessment of the results. They were trying to figure out why so many orchestras outside the top half-dozen are chronically on the edge of financial collapse?

Among the Knight conclusions: "Free programming and outreach do not turn people into ticket buyers." Also that there is a large audience interested in classical music in the U.S.: "The problems of orchestras stem not from the music they play but from the delivery systems they employ." And this interesting thought: "Orchestras need to do more research on those who do _not_ attend their concerts," that is, audience research is invariably conducted among those who have already gotten the message and is therefore useless for figuring out how to attract new ticketbuyers.

While clearly some of the conditions Knight found are specific to symphonies, I was struck by how much it sounded just like the classical dance, opera and repertory-theater sectors. Don't the folks running those institutions think that the way to entice new people is to "get them in the theater once" with a free ticket? Isn't most audience surveying by theater/dance/opera conducted among folks who are already bought in?