Minnesota Sinfonia, Called “The People’s Orchestra,” to Close After 36 Years

In Monday’s (10/14) Minn Post (Minnesota), Michael Anthony writes, “Jay Fishman … plans to retire this month after 36 years as artistic director and conductor of the Minnesota Sinfonia, an ensemble of 26 professional freelance musicians whose innovative Music in the Schools program over the years has reached as many as 200,000 inner-city students and thousands more audience members at concerts around the Twin Cities. And the orchestra will retire with him…. ‘I still love working with the musicians, and I still love music,’ Fishman said. ‘The problem is raising the money. The wear and tear finally got to me …’ This is a special problem for the Sinfonia—the ‘people’s orchestra,’ as it is known—which plays 60 or 70 concerts a year on a modest budget of between $400,000 and $700,000 but doesn’t charge admission for its concerts and whose audience, in part, is low-income. ‘This means we can’t make it on ticket sales,’ he said, ‘and we’re not big enough to launch big fund drives,’… The Sinfonia likely will continue at least into 2025 with its Music in the Schools programs to comply with its non-profit tax status … As far as regular concerts go, Fishman and the Sinfonia will gracefully take their final bows in two concerts this weekend.”