American orchestras: A time of crisis or rebirth?

Carnegie Hall celebrated the American orchestra last week. Except that Spring for Music, the festival that ended Saturday, wasn’t actually a Carnegie Hall festival. It was sponsored by patrons and foundation grants. And given the turmoil across the country as orchestras battle financial duress and strikes and lockouts lead to concert cancellations, some might ask what exactly there is to celebrate.

It’s a hard time for orchestras. But then, it’s a hard time for a lot of traditional institutions — newspapers, record labels, book publishers. Audiences and revenue are declining, and modern readers and listeners aren’t necessarily interested in the same products they were in the past. In the case of journalism, this means print newspapers; for orchestras, it means concerts of music by 19th-century European composers.

“We see in all walks of life . . . tremendous volatility,” says Jesse Rosen, president of the League of American Orchestras. “So it’s not surprising that in orchestras there is a lot of tension. Broader environmental issues that are impacting orchestras will play out in labor-management relations, just like in any other sector.”

A couple of years ago, at the league’s annual conference, Rosen made waves when he stated publicly just how dire the situation is. Since then, a wave of lockouts and pay cuts — in Atlanta, Indianapolis, St. Paul, and, worst of all, in Minneapolis, where the eight-month lockout of the Minnesota Orchestra continues with no end in sight — has proved his point.

Nonetheless Rosen, reached by phone in his New York offices two years after that conference, is more sanguine about the situation today. “I think the strain that orchestras have been experiencing has been a positive influence with regard to experimentation,” he says. “I think it’s kind of accelerated change that needs to happen.”