The Louisville Orchestra and its financial struggles are forefront in two national stories just as the organization is due to submit its bankruptcy plan to the federal court this week.
The documentary film by Owsley Brown III and Jerome Hiler tells the story of Mayor Charles Farnsley’s vision: The arts would remake a city ravaged by flood and the Great Depression.
Or, as NPR Classical reporter Anastasia Tsioulcas phrases it, “the Confucian idea that a city of high culture would attract wealth and power as well as prestige.”
After it was founded in 1937 during the Depression, the LO indeed pursued Farnley’s vision of a small-town orchestra commissioning the works by the world’s greatest contemporary composers.
And it worked, with General Electric executives citing the Louisville Orchestra as one reason the company selected Louisville for Appliance Park.
Well, it worked for a while.
From the Sunday New York Times story, “Survival Strategies for Orchestras,” by Vivien Schwietzer:
This remarkable venture, which resulted in works by Lukas Foss, Paul Hindemith, Roy Harris, Gunther Schuller and many others, put Louisville and its orchestra on the international cultural map and attracted luminaries like Shostakovich and Martha Graham to visit the city. But that wasn’t enough to fend off the regular financial crises that have dogged the orchestra over the decades since, until its recent bankruptcy filing.
Schwietzer uses the LO to examine larger arts funding failures such as overreliance on private patrons and corporate donations.
“Survival Strategies” looks at new orchestra financing models that come down to one old tool – using freelance players paid by the job. Schweitzer also raises one painful internal issue the local media hasn’t glommed onto – conductors and directors make multiples of the typical player’s salary, a model more than one interviewee deems “unsustainable.”
Here’s the note from Brown and Hiler alerting supporters to the NYTimes and NPR pieces:
We are pleased to let you know that the New York Times will run a story in tomorrow’s paper (Sunday, 5/29th) centered around our film Music Makes A City. The below link is the electronic copy of the story. You will find the hard copy version of the article in the Arts & Leisure section of Sunday’s paper.
Terry Boyd
Terry Boyd has seven years experience as a business/finance journalist, and eight years a military reporter with European Stars and Stripes. As a banking and finance reporter at Business First, Boyd dealt directly with the most influential executives and financiers in Louisville.
Click here to read other articles by Terry Boyd.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Save-Louisville/100001150864443 Save Louisville
Louisville’s long range economic base that supports arts groups is threatened by the city’s plan to toll its citizens to fund the biggest urban planning mistake of the 21st century: the downtown portion of the Ohio River Bridges Project. This 23 lane interchange will lock Louisville’s image defining gateway into the only expand elevated waterfront x-way in the world…for the next 100 years. The ORBP is the 3rd largest highway project in the country (Forbes ranks Louisville 9th best for commuters) will bury the CBD waterfront under ugly 1950s style flyover x-ways while simultaneously building a $1/4 billion tunnel under a few politically connected families’ suburban estates. In the only bridges related scientific poll undertaken in the last 15 years, a toll funded 2 bridges plan was opposed by an amazing 85% with greater than 60% opposed to a toll funded downtown bridge. Local leaders are undeterred and continue to promote this boondoggle against the wishes of a super-majority of citizens. The catastrophic mistake of building infrastructure that is 50 years out of date will essentially make Louisville unmarketable & doom the city to over 1oo years of economic & cultural stagnation
Terry Boyd
NYTimes, NPR look at ‘Music Makes a City,’ Louisville Orchestra for clues to solving national arts crisis
Owsley Brown III
The Louisville Orchestra and its financial struggles are forefront in two national stories just as the organization is due to submit its bankruptcy plan to the federal court this week.
Both stories – one in the New York Times and one on National Public Radio’s Deceptive Cadence blog – use last year’s “Music Makes a City” documentary to look at the nation’s larger arts funding issues. (“Music Makes a City” has just been released on DVD.)
The documentary film by Owsley Brown III and Jerome Hiler tells the story of Mayor Charles Farnsley’s vision: The arts would remake a city ravaged by flood and the Great Depression.
Or, as NPR Classical reporter Anastasia Tsioulcas phrases it, “the Confucian idea that a city of high culture would attract wealth and power as well as prestige.”
After it was founded in 1937 during the Depression, the LO indeed pursued Farnley’s vision of a small-town orchestra commissioning the works by the world’s greatest contemporary composers.
And it worked, with General Electric executives citing the Louisville Orchestra as one reason the company selected Louisville for Appliance Park.
Well, it worked for a while.
From the Sunday New York Times story, “Survival Strategies for Orchestras,” by Vivien Schwietzer:
This remarkable venture, which resulted in works by Lukas Foss, Paul Hindemith, Roy Harris, Gunther Schuller and many others, put Louisville and its orchestra on the international cultural map and attracted luminaries like Shostakovich and Martha Graham to visit the city. But that wasn’t enough to fend off the regular financial crises that have dogged the orchestra over the decades since, until its recent bankruptcy filing.
Schwietzer uses the LO to examine larger arts funding failures such as overreliance on private patrons and corporate donations.
“Survival Strategies” looks at new orchestra financing models that come down to one old tool – using freelance players paid by the job. Schweitzer also raises one painful internal issue the local media hasn’t glommed onto – conductors and directors make multiples of the typical player’s salary, a model more than one interviewee deems “unsustainable.”
Here’s the note from Brown and Hiler alerting supporters to the NYTimes and NPR pieces:
We are pleased to let you know that the New York Times will run a story in tomorrow’s paper (Sunday, 5/29th) centered around our film Music Makes A City. The below link is the electronic copy of the story. You will find the hard copy version of the article in the Arts & Leisure section of Sunday’s paper.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/arts/music/survival-strategies-for-orchestras.html?_r=1
This past Wednesday, the NPR.org website ran the below story on the film as well.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2011/05/25/136587147/a-struggling-american-city-revived-through-new-music#more
Many thanks for your willingness to follow our film’s life in the world.
Sincerely yours,
Owsley Brown, III & Jerome Hiler