The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), which has now achieved nearly all of the financial goals it set in 2001, when it was approaching financial disaster, has turned to the most difficult goal of all: increasing its endowment from $27 million to $150 million.
According to the St. Louis Business Journal, the SLSO, which has cut its budget and raised $31 million in stopgap funding, projects a loss of only $1.6 million for the current fiscal year, down from an estimated $7 million. But president and executive editor Randy Adams and chairman Virginia Weldon told the Business Journal that the orchestra must build a large endowment in order to compete with its peer orchestras.
"If we want to keep our orchestra at the same caliber as the Cleveland Orchestra, which it is now, we need an endowment somewhere around the neighborhood of at least $140 million," Weldon said. "The Cleveland Orchestra is really the benchmark for us, and we have to keep going because none of us, not our board, not our community, will be satisfied to see this orchestra not sustain its current musical quality."
The orchestra has doubled the size of its development department in order to raise more funds. It is also working to match a $40 million challenge grant from the Taylor family, the owners of Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
Meanwhile, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that former music director Hans Vonk, who stepped down last year after being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, has canceled his last scheduled appearances with the orchestra because of his health problems. Concerts on 31 January and 1 February will be conducted by James Judd, music director of the New Zealand Symphony, and concerts on 1 and 2 March will be led by Donald Runnicles, San Francisco Opera's music director and principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony.
— Ben Mattison
"Symphony's
next measure: $150 million"
Chad Garrison - St. Louis Business
Journal - 3 January 2003
"Vonk
cancels remaining dates with Symphony"
Sarah Bryan Miller - St. Louis
Post-Dispatch - 5 January 2002
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