Setting the record straight

Some time ago I wrote about two newspaper articles, one from San Francisco, the other from Cincinnati. Both, I said, seemed to be saying that musical organizations (the San Francisco Opera and the Cincinnati Symphony) were in improved financial shape, when in fact details of the stories made it clear that both were still in trouble.

I wondered why the press sometimes seems to go easy on major classical music institutions. But I’m happy to say that the Cincinnati article misled me. Janelle Gelfand, the music critic at the Cincinnati Enquirer, drew my attention to several stories she’d written over the past two years, one with a business reporter, Cliff Peale. And I’m happy to say that they’re doing a stellar job. If every classical music institution in every city (and especially New York) got this kind of scrutiny, the entire field would be better off.

Here are some links:

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/08/10/biz_cso10.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/08/10/biz_cso10rbend.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/07/22/loc_cso.22.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/02/20/loc_cso.20.html

Good as all these stories are, the very best, for me, is the first, dating from August 10, 2003. You’ll see that the orchestra, with its endowment shrinking and its ticket sales and donations falling off, painted a notably brighter picture in its annual financial report than it did in its tax return for the same period. And Gelfand, who caught them at it, says so very firmly.