“Depending on your perspective, good times at the Cleveland Orchestra are either here again or very close at hand,” writes Zachary Lewis in Tuesday’s (12/11) Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Within the 2018 annual report released Tuesday lies a raft of good, even great news, especially in the areas of fundraising and attendance. Over it all, however, hangs the shadow of a stubborn deficit that’s shrinking but hasn’t yet disappeared. ‘It’s been a wonderful year in so many ways,’ said orchestra President Andre Gremillet, whose title formally changed from executive director at Tuesday’s annual meeting of the Musical Arts Association, the orchestra’s governing body…. Like last year, the orchestra ended fiscal 2018 in the red, with a deficit of $1.3 million on a budget of $53 million.… Last year, the deficit was $4.2 million, and next year, the group aspires to break even.… Average attendance at Severance Hall increased over 6 percent in 2018, to 1,649 per concert, or 83 percent of the venue’s capacity. Of those seats, some 18 percent were occupied by college students or young people under 18.… Bucking recent trends, too, the orchestra also saw growth in subscription sales.”
Posted December 13, 2018
In photo: Music Director Franz Welser-Möst conducts the Cleveland Orchestra
