If you haven’t already, check out this report on Art & Seek from Jerome Weeks, who publishes the memo (below) sent out by Dallas Symphony Orchestra board chairman Blaine Nelson, updating staff and musicians about the symphony’s current financial state. In the memo, Nelson suggests a number of routes currently being explored by the DSO, including, but not limited to, a possible merger with the Dallas Opera and “addressing the potential requirements of a possible state of insolvency.”
As Weeks reports, mergers between symphonies and opera companies are rare, and some non-profit experts argue that the efficiencies created by such a merger don’t create significant enough savings to justify the loss of autonomy. Furthermore, in the case of Dallas, opera CEO Kieth Cerny has put in place what the DSO needs: a plan for achieving financial health, one that includes some belt-tightening (c.f. the opera’s slimmer upcomming seasons), but manages to find some room for innovation (new commissions and collaborations, such as the recent partnership with the Dallas Theater Center). Call it presupposition, but I don’t think the opera, especially under a straight-laced bottom-liner like Cerny, would welcome a money-leaking behemoth like the DSO onto their books.
The Dallas Symphony, on the other hand, is still floundering for a plan. To get to solvency, Nelson says they will first hold off on hiring a CEO. The justification, according to the memo, is that the board believes it is unfair to bring a new executive — and his or her family — into a financial situation as dire as the symphony’s. This is troubling news. The DSO board obviously has a very low view of their financial state, and it will try to steer its way out without a clear leader and clear direction for the future. The board knows best, I guess, which may be something that Bill Lively figured out pretty quickly. Here’s the memo:
Memo to Members of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Staff
From: Blaine L. Nelson, Chairman of the Board of Governors DSA
Subject: Dallas Symphony Association CEO Search
Many of you have inquired as to the status of the DSA’s search for our new permanent CEO. A few weeks ago, the Executive Board of the DSA voted to temporarily suspend the CEO search process in order to explore in greater detail various alternatives to build more certainty into the financial future of the DSA. The Executive Board determined that it was not in “good faith” to offer any CEO candidate a career position, which would require them to move from whatever position they currently hold and most probably would require them to move their family, etc to Dallas, to join an organization whose financial future was not certain at this time.
Our current executive team and board leadership has been forthcoming over the past few months with the orchestra, the staff, the Board of Governors and the public as to our financial condition, which is dire and not where we need it to be. Although, we averted a crisis of cash at the end of the calendar year 2011, our cash situation remains uncertain and we project at this time that our cash needs are only met through sometime late this coming Fall.
We have received tremendous and generous financial support from members of our Board of Governors and donors. Many of our board members and donors have significantly increased their giving over prior years. We are enormously appreciative of their generosity. We have reduced our operating costs significantly in many areas, including reducing the number of productions in next year’s programming. However, a significant structural deficit still remains and many of our major donors and community leaders have requested that we develop a plan for the future that provides more certainty as to how we will reduce that structural deficit.
Our Executive Board has been working hard and has been focusing their efforts in exploring various alternatives to address that need for a plan for the future that provides more financial certainty. The alternatives the Executive Board has been exploring include, but are not limited to: collaborations and combinations with other arts organizations; continuing to build donor support for our existing strategy; and addressing the potential requirements of a possible state of insolvency. We have not yet concluded at this time what direction provides the best opportunity for our financial security and certainty going forward. As you can imagine, all of these alternatives are complex and require significant study in order to determine what is best for the future of the Dallas Symphony Association and for the great orchestra we have here in the community of Dallas.
Further communications will be forthcoming as our Executive Board draws closer to determining the direction that produces the most desirable financial situation for the DSA. In the meantime, we appreciate all that you’re doing, in whatever capacity you work, to making some the most beautiful music that has ever been experienced in the history of Dallas.
Thank you!
