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Virginia Symphony Hard Hit by Current Recession
Hampton Roads, VA… The Virginia Symphony announced today that the dimensions of the current economic downturn have created a threatening situation for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. “Shortfalls in single ticket sales and unrealized donations have left the Symphony with a current $500,000 cash flow shortage and a one million dollar debt,” said Carla Johnson, Executive Director of the Symphony. “For the first time in five years, we were not able to balance the annual budget for 2007-2008 – our fiscal year runs August 1 to July 31st.”
“While we continued to be hopeful in August that anticipated donations would be coming in, we took steps to cut costs by eliminating four staff positions. Our revenue, however, continues to be negatively impacted by the recession so we are now taking these additional steps: The staff is taking a 20 percent salary cut effective January 1, 2009 and we are trimming the number of concerts in the spring. We will make additional cuts if they are needed.”
“The Virginia Symphony is a special place,” said Elizabeth Coulter Vonderheide, co-chair of the Orchestra Committee. “The musicians feel privileged to work here, and love bringing music to Hampton Roads. We look forward to working hard with our management and the community to solve these problems."
JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Virginia Symphony, said "The musicians and I will continue to dedicate ourselves to providing the very highest level of musical excellence to our community. We believe that this region needs and deserves a great orchestra, and I am proud that we have one of the finest symphonies in our country."
“Based on community input,” said Johnson, “the Virginia Symphony, because we are a regional arts organization, built a model of taking the music out to our communities and playing concert series in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Williamsburg and other communities. And we invested heavily, again in response to community requests, in our education programs and our community engagement programs to reach younger and broader audiences.
To sustain this current model, we need to raise 4 million a year in contributions with an additional 2.5 million through ticket sales and through our performances for the Virginia Opera, The Virginia Arts Festival, the Ballet and Todd Rosenlieb dance. Since the start of our fiscal year, we have raised 1.15 million in cash which is a 15 percent increase over this time last year. Yet we are still $500,000 behind in our current cash need due to the shortfall from last year.
“Given the current recession and the predictions for the length for the downturn, as we look at the 2009-2010 season, we will have to determine whether our current model is sustainable.”
December contributions as the tax year ends have historically been strong. We are hopeful that this will be true this month but given the current economic situation, that is hard to predict and may be unreasonable.”
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The Virginia Symphony Orchestra with a complement of 79 professional musicians under the direction of Grammy-nominated Music Director JoAnn Falletta performs 140 concerts annually, reaching 200,000 concert goers every season in venues throughout the region. Our education and outreach programs reach 53,000 students and adult learners every year. The Virginia Symphony Orchestra is the cultural cornerstone of the performing arts in Hampton Roads.
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