The following PowerPoint presentation was created to support a speech to a forum of radio symphony orchestra managers at an EBU conference in London 5.11.2004. So bear in mind that what is presented here is like a ‘silent movie’: you have to guess the dialogue. The intension of the speech was to initiate a productive discussion on how to avoid some of the obvious negative developments seen in the orchestral area over the last 3 - 5 years:
- increasing budget problems
- audience attraction problems - especially regarding the younger generations
- an audience that is gradually ‘growing’ older
- increasing neglect from television
- problems as to public and organizational profile
The radio symphony orchestras have a very long tradition and in many cases a glorious past, but society, present culture norms and the media world in general are changing so drastically these years that almost everything has to be re-evaluated. And all areas within the public service organisations have to prove their present - and future - value to the organization or ‘the owners’: the public service broadcasters. Therefore it is not any more sufficient as orchestral managers to be able to create concert programmes of high artistic value, or constantly work for the orchestral quality improvement. This is still very important of course, but it is as important to know, define and improve the orchestra’s many different values to the organisation - viewed on many levels, and to know how to communicate with and attract the orchestra’s audience.
Competitiveness has arrived in the arts and the culture world as well as it has a long time ago in the commercial world. And struggle for survival or for maintaining a platform for further development has become a discipline in itself. This may be viewed as a very negative side of the market orientation in contemporary media and culture life, nevertheless it is a very vital part of the life of orchestras. And denial does not solve the problem.
I do hope that the speech and all the figures and graphs were a help to the forum of orchestral managers, although there is a lot more to be said about these facts.
The spontaneous reaction indicated that I did hit some ‘hot spots’ and that there is a very strong wish and will to deal with these problems.
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