Tough times: 'We are trying to save the symphony'

The OD reported on the challenges the Utica Symphony Orchestra is facing. As the article relates:

Sponsorships are a fraction of what they once were, season ticket subscriptions plummeted over the past two decades and younger generations don't have as much interest in classical music as older generations do.

A sign of how tight things are: Faced with a cancellation by soprano Colleen Gaetano, who was supposed to headline a May 8 performance by local natives, the symphony decided to cancel the concert.

It would have been a gamble to go with someone who might not draw as large an audience, symphony board Vice President Loretta Massoud-Romano said Friday.

“To replace her, it was really taking a chance with the way the economy is,” Massoud-Romano said. “We were not in a position to take a gamble. We are trying to save the symphony.”

Faced with these challenges, the symphony and its board are working with a marketing agency on attracting wider audiences by targeting the new style of symphonies nationwide, which often includes moving from classical music to a more modern repertoire.

“I want it to be noticed by the young, the adults, every generation,” Romano said. “We're trying to define what everybody wants to see.”

The symphony is also working with a tighter budget, which means fewer people taking on more responsibility.

Officials could not provide current symphony budget figures Friday. An Internal Revenue Service Form 990 filing from a year ago shows the symphony spent more than $321,000 in the year ending June 30, 2008, and took in about $336,000. That helped whittle away at a deficit from the prior year that had stood at about $25,000, the tax form shows. Read more here.