More Than Music: What a $13 Million Study Taught Us About Orchestra Survival

"The key to an orchestra's success is the connection to community"

from Catherine French in the Foreword to Travis Newton's Orchestra Management Handbook.

It is also one of the lessons learned in the Knight Foundation's multimillion dollar study of 15 American orchestras in the 1990s. (A total of $13 million was spent over 12 years of study.)

Here is a summary of the lessons for orchestras as presented by Dr Thomas Wolf in the Knight Foundation's study:

1. The problems of orchestras stem not from the music they play but from the delivery systems they employ.

Some people have claimed that the audience for classical music is dying and with it the symphony orchestra. But the first part of that statement is verifiably untrue. More than 60 percent of Americans have had some connection to classical music broadly defined, based on Knight’s own research, and fully one-third of these individuals fit this music comfortably into their lives at home and in automobiles. Unfortunately, only a small fraction attends orchestra programs in concert halls.

2. The mission of an orchestra needs to be clear, focused and achievable.

An orchestra can no longer afford to promise all things to all people. A mission statement that promises a world-class touring and recording ensemble, extensive local outreach, broad public-school education, a commitment to new music, musician development and community service may be promising far more that it can deliver and end up doing many things badly. It may also find itself with deep deficits. Orchestras must respond to the needs of their constituents and become committed to serving their audiences in ways that they want to be served.

3. Orchestras that are not relevant to their communities are increasingly endangered.

The caliber of the playing, the renown of the conductor and the architecture of a world-class hall mean nothing if an orchestra’s programs do not reverberate throughout the community. The more orchestras peel off 3 to 4 percent of an economically elite, racially segregated fraction of the community, the less they contribute to the vital life of a community. In the end, their very survival is placed in jeopardy.

4. Transformational change in orchestras is dependent on the joint efforts of all members of the orchestra family – music director, musicians, administration, and volunteer leadership and trustees.

An early major discovery of the foundation was that rarely were the important components of the orchestra family coming together to plan for the future. As a result, transformational change was being blocked. Music directors were largely absent, musicians and management engaged in discussion through collective bargaining, and trustees and musicians seemed completely removed from one another.

5. No single magic bullet will address the many serious problems that orchestras face.

"Magic of Music started with the simple premise that changes in the concert hall experience would transform orchestras. That turned out to be simplistic. More varied and interesting programming, a revitalized concert hall experience, more involved music directors, better marketing, enhanced participation of musicians in governance and decision-making, less restrictive collective bargaining agreements, more innovative use of technology, alternative leadership models, larger endowments, more education and outreach – all these things and others can contribute to solutions. Yet it is their combined power to produce transformational change that orchestras must unleash.

6. Free programming and outreach do not turn people into ticket buyers.

If the Knight program dispelled one myth, it was the long-held axiom that the way to develop new ticket buyers was to give them free tickets or programming.

Free and subsidized outreach can be valuable for its own sake and is part of an orchestra’s service to its community. But it is not a technique to market expensive tickets. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that significant numbers of them can be retained without more sustained follow-up strategies.

7. Traditional audience education efforts, designed to serve the uninitiated, are often used primarily by those who are most knowledgeable and most involved with orchestras.

Over and over again, Magic of Music orchestras chose to abandon programs designed to attract new audiences because it was the subscribers who took advantage of them. The challenge in allocating audience education resources became how to balance the need to retain current audiences with the desire to attract new ones.

8. There is a lot of evidence that participatory music programs – including instrumental lessons and choral programs – are correlated with later attendance and ticket buying at orchestral concerts.

Traditional exposure programs, such as orchestras’ concert hall offerings for children, seem to have little long-lasting effect on later behavior.

9. Orchestras need to do more research on those who do not attend their concerts.

Despite extensive research conducted on audiences and people who have been audience members, orchestras do very little research on nonattenders. Knight Foundation’s consumer study was ground-breaking precisely because it surveyed people who did not attend orchestra concerts. The research revealed many surprises and dispelled many myths. More research has to be conducted on this group if they are to be attracted to the concert hall.

The Study's Final Report called The Search for Shining Eyes is long, but worth the read.

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