In Tuesday’s (1/31) Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin writes, “The Philadelphia Orchestra Association has made incremental but encouraging progress in the campaign to finance its reorganization and operations for several years beyond an expected exit from bankruptcy. But it still has a ‘mountain of money’ to raise. About $35.5 million has been committed in gifts and pledges on the way to an immediate goal of $44 million, orchestra chairman Richard B. Worley said Monday. … The total needed, though, is more than the orchestra has ever before attempted to raise: an estimated $160 million to $170 million for operations and endowment. All of this will be sought as the orchestra does its usual stumping for the annual fund. ‘We still have an awful lot of money to raise,’ said Worley, who has, with his wife, given $5 million to the recovery effort. ‘It’s been a long struggle, it’s not over, but we’re still standing and we’re still playing, and Philadelphia is increasingly responding to us, and I couldn’t be more encouraged.’ … ‘It’s a multiyear task,’ Worley said of the $100 million portion of the campaign earmarked for endowment. ‘We expected that it would begin during Yannick [Nézet-Séguin’s] leadership, and that the success of his leadership artistically would be very important to our ability to excite the community who will want to contribute.’ ”
Posted January 31, 2012
