Good Morning,
Watch the money this morning. Three arts institutions on two continents are rewriting survival, and none of them is doing it a traditional way. Wigmore Hall walked away from Arts Council England’s portfolio and says ticket sales are up 25% year-on-year since (The Stage). Opera Australia, $10.6 million in the red two years ago, broke even after a 29% jump at the box office (Limelight). And Sydney Dance Company, four straight deficits deep, is closing the gap by selling classes to the public (Australian Financial Review). Earned income, not grants.
Which makes the Heinz Endowments’ recent move worth a look: it’s pulling back from individual artists and one-off projects to fund organizations and infrastructure instead (WESA). The safety net is reorganizing around buildings, not people. Meanwhile the West End shows why the math is so brutal in the first place: it now costs £3 to £10 million just to raise the curtain on a musical (WhatsOnStage).
Elsewhere, jazz is taking stock of Sonny Rollins, the last man standing from “A Great Day in Harlem” (Richard Brody at the The New Yorker, Nate Chinen at The Gig).
And the virally successful Savannah Bananas now want to be Disney (The Guardian). Some empires you can see coming.
All of our stories below. See you tomorrow,
Doug
