San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Only concert from misguided symphony should be its requiem




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from the editorial section of San Antonio Express News 9/25/98

by Louis Podesta



The San Antonio Symphony must die. It should do so in order that it may be reborn.

Further, the city of San Antonio should strike from its 1999 budget the $500,000 allocated to this orchestra. This not only a humane act for a group of musicians who have lived through hell for the better part of six months, but it is a sound fiscal and cultural decision.

Philanthropy is not a right; it is an honor and a privilege. Further, culture is both an actual and desired social condition.

Private foundations or public governments supposedly render funding based on merit, need and performance. The populace of a given area constitute the demographic associated with that funding.

At this time, the San Antonio Symphony has not earned any future donations or tax dollars from the people of San Antonio.

Concerts, gallery showings, dance programs and other cultural events have an economic casuality. The word "culture" has not part in this logic.

On a good might, 1,500 people attend a symphony concert, which is less than 1 percent of the population of the San Antonio area. Therefore, more than 99 percent of the people in this area do not attend performances nor do they support this "culture" through their donations.

The San Antonio Symphony, when founded, received no city money.

By the 1950s, the orchestra had 85 musicians and played 15 subscription concerts a year. They performed on Saturday nights at the "now-empty" city-owned Muincipal Auditorium, and parking cost nothing. They regularly toured Texas and had an opera season.

The conductor, Victor Alessandro, had two assistant conductors, a manager, assistant manager, librarian, three paid staffers and a ton of hard-working volunteers.

Assistant conductor and principal timpanist Harvey Biskin, spearheaded the children's concert series. Assistant conductor composer and first violinist Raphael deCastro conducted subscription concert and opera rehearsals.

Mat Greenberg was the business manager, and principal trombonist Nicholas Rossi was his assistant.

This symphony was ranked in the top 20 orchestras inthe United States. Marilyn Horne, Beverly Sills, Jose Iturbi, Issac Stern, Ruggiero Ricci and Claudio Arrau, among others, came here eagerly and earnestly.

In terms of standard repertoire, today's orchestra - aside from the accolades associated with its playing of contemporary music indigenous to the Southwest - has not been ranked nationally as a major symphony since the early 1970s. It is not "critically acclaimed," and to say so is a lie.

Crucially, in the early 1970s, a decision was made by the symphony's board of directors to play two concert dates per performance instead of one. The only reason it did so was that the New York Philharmonic and other major orchestras did the same.

Therefore, the 15 concert series, which had an average attendance of 70 percent, went to 30-plus dates a year, with an average attendance of 50 percent. From that point on, the orchestra went broke.

Municipal Auditorium holds 4,500 people. The Majestic seats 2,200, and Laurie Auditorium holds 2,800. This reality is not, as some have suggested, a "Bubba" mentality. It is an arithmetic reality. No popular music promoter will ever book a second concert until they have sold out the first.

Yet, a select group of individuals on the symphony board continue to live in this dream world of half-empty concerts, 25 paid staff members and an executive director with a company car. There are even $3,800-a-month - each - billboards advertising their postponed season.

This board listens to no one; it never has and never will as long as government funding is available. When someone writes you a check for $500,000 and a local media propaganda machine backs you up, who needs to be real?

It is ridiculous for the people of this city to continue to give their hard-earned tax dollars to further fund an orchestra which, in a management and an accountancy sense, cannot pass muster. The definition of the world "reality" does not include the phrase "with the exception of culture."

Therefore, the San Antonio Symphony should dissolve and reorganize per the socioeconomic equation associated with the culture that "is" San Antonio.

That is truly the only way it can survive and grow.

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Louis Podesta holds a bachelor of art degree in music from the University of Texas at Austin.


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