“The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has canceled 10 concerts … next season at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall,” writes Mary Carole McCauley in Thursday’s (7/7) Baltimore Sun. “The schedule change will … reduce the total number of BSO concerts next season from 123 to 113. By the end of last season, attendance at BSO performances was averaging about 40% of capacity in both [Meyerhoff and the Music Center at Strathmore] venues…. ‘Overall, the trajectory has been growth. But I don’t like the sight of a single empty seat,’ [said BSO President Mark C. Hanson]. The revised schedule will include a new … regional BSO series of three concerts in an as-yet unnamed neighboring municipality…. Hanson thinks attendance at BSO concerts might have been low because the symphony scheduled too many performances of the same program…. Brian Prechtl, a percussionist with the orchestra and chair of the Baltimore Symphony Musicians Players’ Committee, said … the decision … ‘will help to keep overuse injury in check while increasing the number of patrons at each performance.’ … The [new] regional series was inspired in part by the success of the three free public Symphony in the City concerts … earlier this year…. The BSO recently launched its new Music in Maryland tour [throughout the state].”
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