Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
JOHN FLEMINGStefan Sanderling faces a daunting challenge as he prepares to become music director of the Florida Orchestra: Amid budget shortfalls, he must keep the ensemble alive without sacrificing quality.
Stefan Sanderling is not yet music director of the Florida Orchestra - he assumes the post July 1 - but he already is closely involved in what he calls "a crucial moment in the survival of this orchestra."
In April, Sanderling made a trip to the Tampa Bay area on short notice to meet with members of the orchestra's board of directors. "It's part of my job to secure the orchestra, and I wanted the board to know my position," he said.
Today, the music director-designate returns to hear a French horn audition and meet with board members, management and musicians. The two-day visit took on more urgency with news over the weekend that the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra shut down because it ran out of money.
In a weak economy that challenges arts groups, at least five other symphony orchestras around the country - in San Jose, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Savannah, Ga.; Tulsa, Okla.; and San Antonio, Texas - have ceased operations this season. Even major orchestras such as those in Chicago, Baltimore and Pittsburgh are struggling with large deficits.
"We're in a difficult time, everyone sees that, and it doesn't make sense to waste time on dreaming or hoping it will go away," Sanderling said.
The conductor, who also is music director of an orchestra in France, was interviewed by phone Sunday from the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. He was en route from a guest-conducting engagement with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in Canada to Toledo, Ohio, where he is artistic adviser to that city's symphony orchestra.
The Florida Orchestra is not in danger of not completing this season, officials say. The season closes May 31 with a fundraising concert called "Mozart, Motown and More." But whether the orchestra winds up its fiscal year June 30 without a huge shortfall is another matter.
With a budget of about $8.4-million, the orchestra expects a deficit of up to $1-million. There's some irony in the bleak forecast, because the number of individual donors has increased by several hundred over the previous year.
"We have more givers than ever, but they're giving a lot less," said David Fischer, the orchestra's chairman and a former mayor of St. Petersburg. "You hear a recurring theme, and that's that people's investments have been diminished significantly. They don't have as much to give as in the past."
Corporate and government support has also fallen off, and the orchestra lost major prospects it had been courting. Last year, the orchestra talked extensively with Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian energy and commodity company whose head U.S. office is in Tampa, about becoming principal sponsor of the masterworks series, as the Raymond James brokerage sponsors the pops series, but the deal didn't work out.
"It was a disappointment because they really care about classical music," orchestra executive director Leonard Stone said. "In Norway, they are megasponsors of the Oslo Philharmonic. We hope to revisit the idea with them."
The orchestra also hoped to be among nonprofit organizations benefiting from the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in February. The orchestra lost some prime midseason dates at the Bayfront Center's Mahaffey Theater, which was rendered unusable for more than a week because it was on the race course. The Grand Prix Foundation chose four other organizations, but none has received any money from the race, which posted a $1.3-million loss.
If state arts funding is eliminated in the Legislature's special budget session, the orchestra would lose an annual appropriation of $115,000.
Without a remarkable windfall, the orchestra would be in worse shape. In February 2002, St. Petersburg resident Gladys Starling died at 92, leaving the orchestra more than $1-million. Mrs. Starling was a consistent but low-profile donor during her life. The unexpected largess allowed the orchestra to report a small surplus last year and has helped reduce the shortfall this year.
Since mid April, Stone has been making pitches from the stage before concerts, trying to raise $500,000 to match a challenge grant of $500,000 from anonymous donors. As part of the $1-million effort, a mailing to orchestra patrons went out this month.
Stone was especially somber Friday as he told the audience at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center that earlier that day, the Fort Lauderdale-based Philharmonic had suspended operations.
"That is not going to happen to your orchestra," he said.
Monday, Stone said the campaign had raised about 60 percent of its goal.
The Florida Orchestra's financial problems are not as bad as those of its Gold Coast counterpart, but that may only be because the Florida Orchestra is not as large. The Philharmonic has a budget of more than $10-million and plays in halls from Miami to West Palm Beach.
Next year, the orchestra's budget was scheduled to go up to about $9-million, a figure that included a 5 percent raise for musicians, the first raise they would have had in several years. Each of the orchestra's 80 players now receives a minimum $28,008 for the 36-week season, though principals and others negotiate for higher salaries. A concertmaster, for example, traditionally receives at least double the minimum.
However, that budget now seems unrealistic, and for several months, the orchestra's board has been struggling to scale it down.
Most of the possible scenarios involve cutting the budget by as much as $1-million next season, to about $7.5-million. Considering that the largest portion of the budget is orchestra members' pay, that would surely mean having to renegotiate the musicians' labor contract, which is in the second of a five-year deal.
"It doesn't take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out that we are not able to fulfill the contract," said Raymond Murray, immediate past chairman of the board. "The musicians know this. They understand. I won't say they're not disappointed, but overall, they trust this board."
The 25-member board includes two orchestra musicians: James Connors, principal cello, and Martin Hebert, principal oboe.
Though contract renegotiations have been common at American symphony orchestras lately, they are still fraught with potentially destructive breaches of trust.
"There has been talk of reopening the contract, but we have not reopened it as yet," said bass trombonist Harold Van Schaik, who heads the orchestra committee that negotiates with management and the board.
"There have been trial balloons sent up about renegotiations, but I wouldn't expect a significantly different animal to come out the other end."
Van Schaik stressed the positive. "We are in a different situation from many of the orchestras that have financial woes, because our ticket sales have been good and even increasing," he said.
The orchestra has 10,000 subscribers to a variety of series. The renewal rate for next season is 56 percent, which translates into more than $151,000 ahead of last year at the same time, said Jan Hicken, director of marketing and communications.
Nevertheless, the weak economy trumps encouraging signs of support, and it is virtually certain that the musicians' contract will have to be renegotiated. For one thing, the raise was meant to be funded by proceeds from the orchestra's endowment, but a campaign to increase the endowment has not gotten off the ground. The endowment is about $6.5-million.
"When we negotiated the contract, nobody thought the Dow was going to slide for three straight years," Stone said. "Nobody could have predicted the impact of 9/11. Because of these circumstances, the endowment campaign simply couldn't take place."
In contract renegotiations, one point likely to be on the table is the size of the orchestra. There have been 80 full-time players for the last two seasons, compared with a combination of full- and part-time players in previous contracts. The continuity and cohesion of the present arrangement has improved performances tremendously.
"That's the reason a lot of people stay here," Van Schaik said. "We produce a sound and quality of performance with 80 people that cannot be done by a lot of orchestras that have fewer. Just as far as ensemble, it makes a big difference when you're working together with the same people all the time."
Even with 80, the orchestra is about 10 players short by symphony orchestra standards. It has 50 string players, and the standard complement is 60.
Sanderling, an up-and-coming conductor who is shifting the focus of his activity from Europe to North America, recently bought a house in St. Petersburg. He has a lot riding on his appointment to lead the orchestra.
He didn't exactly draw a line in the sand about the number of players, but he made it clear that he doesn't intend to preside over a seriously diminished ensemble.
"The size of the orchestra is crucial," Sanderling said. "To solve this crisis, I think it would be very dangerous to compromise our artistic standards. The product must be first-rate."
Sanderling said that there was a limit to how much can be squeezed from the budget. "My approach is we need to find new resources to raise more money, not make cuts."