Minnesota Orchestra Year End Financial Results: Lots of Positives, Insist Board

In most years, a press release headed "MOA Announces Year End Results and Elects Board of Directors" would have even most music industry observers yawning and reaching for the delete button. But this is not most years, it is the most challenging time in the American classical music scene's history, and MOA stands for Minnesota Orchestra Association, the body that runs the orchestra that has tragically become the crisis' poster boy.

Few who know anything about the classical scene in North America will be ignorant by now of the long, bitter industrial dispute dogging that fine orchestra. Most will know that music director Osmo Vänskä walked out, exasperated. Some will have heard rumors that the players are considering starting an alternative group under another name. But the management insist that the cost-cutting measures they have put in place were vital, and furthermore, that some very reasonable compromise offers they have made were turned down flat.

There are no heroes in this story. So we take good news where we find it. And it's not always so easy to spot. But the release states that the orchestra's operating loss is "significantly reduced" (down to $1.1 million from $6 million), that community support has remained strong with $5.7 million donated and that the endowment has been drawn on only at a level that is sustainable.

The orchestra's hall, aptly called Orchestra Hall, was renovated at a cost of $52 million and neither exceeded its time period nor budget. The orchestra's president and CEO, Michael Henson, says in the release, "Despite having been cast negatively in the strife of negotiations, the renovated Orchestra Hall presents an opportunity to focus on what is actually the most important issue facing all orchestras today: retaining and developing new audiences and donors."

However, the dispute has cost money. In lost ticket revenue, of course (earned revenue was only $14,000), but also in a $961,000 grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board that was subject to the arguments being resolved. They weren't, so back the money went. The Symphony Ball was also moved from June to September (for strategic reasons, says Henson), so the expected $600,000-plus won't show up until the following year's figures. Still, a majority of donors have stayed with the orchestra, and the management clearly draw comfort from that. Music lovers in the region might as well.