Orchestras That Came Back From the Dead : Community leaders are giving new life--and music--to defunct regional symphonic ensembles

When the Oakland Symphony abruptly filed for bankruptcy in September, 1986, Joyce Anderson took it personally.

“It should not have happened,” she insists. “It’s our orchestra. It fills a function that nothing else does. We miss it and we want it back.”

At the time, orchestral life in Oakland seemed dead beyond hope of resurrection, buried with the stake of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in its heart and $3.7 million in debts.

But today Anderson is about to get her orchestra back, thanks in large measure to her grass-roots campaign based among former subscribers. A longtime patron and then subscriber of the defunct Oakland Symphony, she became president of the new Oakland East Bay Symphony League.

“I was grieved,” she states simply. “I wanted to get it back, so I went to work. You gather up yourself and all your resources, and put it back together.”

Recent years have been difficult for orchestras around the country--so much so that the struggling orchestra has become an icon of common arts wisdom. Oakland was the first U.S. orchestra to fail since 1952, and it appeared to initiate a sudden crisis among regional orchestras. By the summer of 1988, symphony orchestras in New Orleans, Nashville and Oklahoma City were also being declared dead, while others continue to teeter at the brink of fiscal extinction.

But in all four supposedly mortal cases, the silence was not final, proving that musically at least, there is life after debt. It was not the orchestras that failed, as much as it was orchestra boards and managers. Today, the four orchestras are back. In Oakland and Oklahoma, they are legally reorganized under different names.

These revivals are forcing a reappraisal of the plight of the symphony orchestra in the ‘80s. Propelled by new board leadership and stubborn community demand, orchestras missing from action and presumed dead are returning to musical life. It seems that while the organizational heads of orchestras may die--often from self-inflicted wounds--the musical body of those institutions is surprisingly hard to kill.

Although the Oakland Symphony story burst very suddenly upon the public, the Oakland arts community and even orchestra musicians, the debacle was a long time coming, as abundantly detailed in “Autopsy of an Orchestra,” an analysis of the bankruptcy that has become required reading for orchestra boards across the country. Commissioned by six grant-making organizations to identify the lessons to be learned from the Oakland experiences, “Autopsy” was written by Melanie Beene, Fenton Johnson and Patricia Mitchell.

The report chronicles a 10-year pattern of unrealistic financial and development planning, leadership turmoil and discontinuity, and a disastrous foray into theater ownership and operation. Some of the problems were unique to Oakland, such as the drowning in New York of Calvin Simmons, its charismatic young music director, in 1982. Other tribulations were products of the time and shared with similar orchestras.

But the real crisis seems to have been one of management--of acknowledging and meeting problems in a timely manner. In answering its own questions about the dissolution, “Autopsy” concludes: “The probable ‘truth’ is that at 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 12, 1986, the past caught up with the Oakland Symphony. When the critical moment came, the organization lacked the energy and commitment necessary to rise to the challenge.”

But not all was lost in the debacle. Just four days before the association decided to liquidate assets under Chapter 7, its volunteer auxiliary group, the Oakland Symphony Orchestra Assn. League, declared itself a separate nonprofit organization. The musicians also incorporated later and offered several benefit concerts.

That, Anderson says, “gave us enough of a toehold.”

Thanks to the work of Anderson and many others, a new/old Oakland East Bay Symphony is prepared to offer a modest season of concerts beginning in March. Proceeding cautiously, it is close to announcing the appointment of a music adviser for two years, while searching for a music director.

“The League is a factor, in great part, in how the orchestra is coming back,” says Judith Lovell, heading a staff of two for the revived institution. “The interesting part of the reforming of a professional orchestra in Oakland is that it was a grass-roots movement among former subscribers.”

Two-thirds of the new orchestra will be former members of the symphony, providing a substantial degree of musical continuity. But the board is new, and Lovell and her cohorts are intent on avoiding the mistakes of the past.

“We need to carve a distinct niche in a very busy arts community,” Lovell says. “The growth of the organization will be extremely conservative, as we want our plans to be fully realizable, and income-driven.”

In addition to a distinctive identity and realistic fiscal plans, to avoid the fate of its predecessor the new orchestra is intent on involving its musicians and the community in its leadership. “The feeling here is very open and participatory,” Lovell says, “and that comes out of the need to make sure that this is a partnership.”

The budget for this limited, re-inaugural season is only 1/12th of what the orchestra planned when it folded. Fund raising, Lovell reports, “isn’t easy in light of the Chapter 7--this is a very skeptic environment in which to re-form.”

Still, the city of Oakland contributed a $100,000 challenge grant, approved by a unanimous vote of the city council. Within months, the orchestra raised matching funds from the community, despite the bad debts left by the liquidation.

The Shortfall Problem

No orchestra of any size covers its expenses with earned income, making up the difference through fund raising and grants. Lovell believes, however, that there is an increasing--and overdue--emphasis on income in orchestral budgets.

American Symphony Orchestra League vice president of consulting Ralph Black, concurs. “It’s always easier to raise money (through gifts) than it is to sell tickets. The primary function of governing boards and managers should be to increase earned income.”

In New Orleans, where many of the same problems occurred as in Oakland, there is now a similar fiscally tough attitude.

“We are taking a ‘no deficit’ approach to the new season,” says Cecil Coles, general manager of the New Orleans Symphony. “We expect by the time we play our first notes to be debt free.”

Those notes will be heard in March, when the orchestra begins an eight-week season of classical concerts; it will also offer three pairs of pops concerts, plus school and family programs.

These will be the orchestra’s first concerts since last January, when operations came to a halt under the burden of almost $4 million in debt. As in Oakland, the debt had been a long time accumulating.

But unlike Oakland, the New Orleans Symphony has not sought recourse from the courts and formal bankruptcy proceedings. Its bank debt--more than half the total--was eliminated by selling off the Orpheum Theater, where the orchestra will continue to play rent-free and operate in a lease-back arrangement, and other real estate.

Settling its non-bank debt may prove more troublesome for the orchestra. It is asking those vendors who have not already written off their debts to accept 30 cents on the dollar, and is attempting to persuade former subscribers to apply money owed them from canceled concerts to series tickets for the new season.

The budget for the new season is $1.7 million. If things go as Cole hopes, the budget will grow to $3.1 or more over the next few years.

There will be continuity in the artistic leadership, which was never an issue. Maxim Shostakovich will return as music director, conducting four weeks of concerts in the abbreviated season, and, excepting a few players who have taken positions elsewhere, the orchestra returns intact.

The board leadership, however, is changed. The board tendered its resignation as a group, allowing incoming President Ronald Jones a free hand. As it happened, he brought back half the members for the new panel.

The experience has had some positive aspects, particularly in the attention it has received, both locally and nationally, Cole asserts.

“By our absence, everyone has become aware of the orchestra--the awareness itself is the key. We’re going to give more to the city. We’ve been a little reclusive, staying in our theater.

“I think everybody sees some good coming from this experience. Every symphony could see this situation, but now other boards may not allow their debt to grow to this amount.”

Contract Extension

The lessons of New Orleans and Oakland were not lost in Nashville. Ernest Szugyi, orchestra manager of the Nashville Symphony, says “I would definitely say that board members were well aware of the situations elsewhere.”

As a result, the orchestra curtailed its 1987-88 season last January when the accumulated debt reached $700,000, a figure well short of those rolled up in Oakland and New Orleans, although all three orchestras were much the same size in budget. The orchestra was thus able to resume operation quicker, and in a smoother process.

It voted to file for Chapter 11 reorganization in June, and now has an extension of its contract with the Musicians Union. Szugyi expects formal court approval of its reorganization plans this month.

Those plans include a back pay settlement with the musicians, a reduction of the orchestra’s staff and a shortened season. The artistic and governing leadership remains the same, although the orchestra is looking for a new executive director.

Out of the Ashes

The dissolution of the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra had its immediate ground in a musicians’ strike, though of course debt--or fear of debt--precipitated the strife. The strike began Oct. 7, 1987, and caused cancellation of the 1987-88 season.

The board voted to cease operations and dissolve the corporation by Oct. 31, 1988, a form of institutional suicide. All debts were paid, $800,000 in endowment funds transfered to the Oklahoma Symphony Music Foundation, and remaining assets transferred to the orchestra’s Women’s Assn.

From these substantial ashes came a new orchestra, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, governed by the Oklahoma Philharmonic Society. The new body was organized in August, even before the actions of the old orchestra’s board took final effect.

Not only are none of the old orchestra’s trustees on the new board, but none on the new panel has had any previous experience with orchestra management.

“The (new) directors are a group who had decided they had gone long enough without music,” reports William Cleary, president of the society. “It changes your life when you don’t have an orchestra.”

Concerts begin in January. The new orchestra, led by Joel Levine, assistant conductor of the old Oklahoma Symphony, will play part-time in a shorter season.

“The minus is that daytime services are limited,” Cleary acknowledges. Because of the more constricted employment, only one-third of the orchestra is made up of players from the old ensemble, he says.

That times are tough for orchestras, and large arts organizations in general, is a commonplace truism. The plagues besetting modern orchestras rival those of Biblical Egypt.

Yet even for the ensembles most seriously afflicted, deficits and strikes do not seem lethal in themselves, but only become so when their challenge is not met.

“For regional orchestras, to succeed may mean to survive--to keep the music playing. This is the heart and soul of the orchestra business,” reads the “Autopsy of an Orchestra.” “Unless all the participants in a symphony’s complex structure embrace this value, music-making institutions may founder.”

New, feisty boards are leading their orchestras back from the grave, not, it appears, because they are economic sages, fund-raising wizards, or union busters, but because they are willing--and eager--to do whatever is necessary to keep the music playing.

According to Black of the American Symphony Orchestra League, hard times are producing the necessary leadership. “It’s a much tougher group than we had before,” he says of current board memberships, “and it’s becoming acceptable to talk about money.”

In some of the doom-and-gloom analyses of recent years, the relevance of the symphony orchestra in contemporary society has been questioned. The efforts of community-based organizers, from a retired music educator like Joyce Anderson in Oakland to businessman William Cleary and his tyros in Oklahoma City--against long odds and in the face of grim and immediate object lessons in the difficulties of the endeavor--suggest some rethinking may be necessary there.

“It wasn’t the orchestra that collapsed,” Lovell says of the Oakland experience, “it was the organization. The need, in the community, remains.”

ORCHESTRAL REVIVALS

BEFORE REORGANIZATION

Name Last Final Board/Orch. Budget Debt Concert Action Oakland $4 million $3.7 million May Chapter 7 Symphony 1986 liquidation Orchestra Sept. 1986 New Orleans $4.1 million $3.9 million January Suspended Symphony 1988 operations Orchestra January 1988 Oklahoma $3 million 0 May Dissolved by Symphony 1987 board action Orchestra October 1988 Nashville $3.9 million $0.7 million January Chapter 11 Symphony 1988 reorganization Orchestra June 1988

AFTER REORGANIZATION

First Board/ New Name Budget Concert Staff Orchestra Oakland $.33 million March New Two-thirds East Bay 1989 to return Symphony in 1989 Orchestra New Orleans $1.7 million March New No change Symphony 1989 Orchestra Oklahoma $1.1 million January New One-third City 1989 returned Philharmonic in 1989 Nashville $2.9 million November Same No change Symphony 1988 (executive Orchestra director sought)