Big city orchestras across the United States are struggling financially as a result of dismal ticket sales, smaller donations, and a recession that have not been this hard felt since the Great Depression.

Various cities such as Charlotte, Tampa, and Indianapolis, orchestras were running at a loss for their recent seasons and they had to painstakingly dig into their personal reserves. Tampa was in the red for the balancing books; they had a whopping $500,000 deficit for the 2009-2010 season.  Management quickly cut many staff positions and launched a fund-raising campaign in a desperate attempt to secure its assets.

Louisville Orchestra had to make the difficult decision to file bankruptcy in order to keep the group together, especially for its 75th anniversary coming up in the year 2012. For some Orchestras, it is not the end of the road to have a carrying deficit, but there does need to be changes made to curtail high operational costs.

I am very saddened to hear about this news.  Many people enjoy the arts and the Orchestra is one outlet where they can come and enjoy the wonderful sounds of music and socialize with other people. The recession is effecting everything from the arts all the way to housing and employment. 

I remember living in Fort Lauderdale years ago and I was shocked to learn that their Orchestra went out of business after many years of entertaining many people.  I feel that a lot of other entertainment venues will also be going out of business; there is not a whole that we can really do.

Our government is $14 tillion dollars in debt and no one knows how long this debt will linger on for. I was reading that if we were to divide the debt among all of the citizens of the United States, each person would owe approximately $43,000!!! That is not a small chuck of change by any means.  I shudder just thinking about this.

Source: USAToday

 Orchestra members (Google)