14 April 2011

It's a dark day in Syracuse





The Syracuse Symphony is no longer. This was to have been their 50th season.


Along with the Syracuse Symphony goes the 150-member strong Syracuse Symphony Youth Orchestra, an important resource for aspiring musicians. The Syracuse Symphony is just the latest cultural institution to go silent. Symphony orchestras all across the country are reeling and most of them are in serious financial trouble.

It's not just smaller market symphonies either. The 110-year-old Philadelphia Orchestra has been flirting with bankruptcy all year and it's one of the world's most celebrated cultural institutions.

The arts are in trouble in this great land, the symphonic arts in particular. Art and music are vital to a healthy society and as go the arts, so goes everything else.

If you live in an area with a symphony, go. Go and then keep going. Once they're gone they don't come back.

6 comments:

  1. I'm very sad to hear this, especially the part where there is a $2.5 million unfunded pension liability. That's quite a few retirements up in smoke.

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  2. Sadder still is that Syracuse isn't an isolated case.

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  3. Dang it. The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra is in trouble, too. And I cannot believe Philly can't support its orchestra anymore... that's just not right.

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  4. It's heartbreaking to hear all of this. Western Civ is preserved and passed along through symphonies and other arts organizations. There's more at stake here than classical music.

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  5. We lost our symphony here in S. Florida a couple of years ago. So far places like the Knight Center for the Performing Arts and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts are hanging on, but not really with any classical performances. I started feeling the heartbreak when we lost our classical and contemporary jazz radio stations.

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  6. That's terrible to hear. We're lucky in St. Pete and Greater Tampa. We have a great orchestra, two opera companies, a classical and a jazz station. Miami still has its ballet doesn't it?

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