With so much attention in the blogosphere being paid to the situations in Shreveport and Columbus along with the upcoming conference in Denver, it has gone virtually unnoticed that an orchestra in Arkansas is on the verge of closing down. I only know about it because it’s very close to home…..
Fayetteville Arkansas, home to the University of Arkansas (which has a thriving music department) and first home of Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s close to Bentonville, Wal-Mart’s home base, and has a population of 350,000 taking into account the surrounding counties. There are several fine performance facilities, an airport, and by all accounts a thriving economy much like here in Springfield MO. We are only a little over two hours drive away.
An article by Mark Minton of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (click on this link and click “print story” and you can read the article gratis) tells the story of the troubles of the North Arkansas Symphony, and the possibilities and current plans for the Fort Smith Symphony (an hour further south of Fayetteville) to fill the potential void left if NASO shut down. Even with a thriving economy and initial major support from the Walton Family Foundation, this paragraph from the article pretty much sums up what has happened:
Ongoing infighting among musicians and managers has bred chaos in the North Arkansas Symphony, leading to the departures of several officials. Symphony leaders said they have solved most of the political problems – but not before they turned off some supporters.
“People are tired of having that go on and giving us money, and it doesn’t seem to produce any beneficial results,” said Norton, the board chairman. “Frankly, so am I.”
I can only say that if this kind of thing becomes public as it has, the results are potentially catastrophic. They hired marketing guru Jon Zurick to help. I wish they had hired a consultant to help with labor relations and governance also, as more marketing and publicity whilst there is internal strife is not a good idea! I reiterate from an earlier post, I wish the League had a crisis team!
For full disclosure, some of the musicians in Springfield play regularly with the NASO (music director Jeannine Wagar) and almost a dozen are members of the Fort Smith Symphony also. Fort Smith music director John Jeter and I communicate to make sure our dates don’t conflict, and it’s always a pleasure to deal with him. Initially when I read that they were going to start performing there, I was surprised, however, they are not going in guns blazing, John is being sensitive to the situation (he wanted to keep things quiet in the interest of sensitivity), and there does not seem to be any animosity:
At the helm of the Fayetteville symphony, Wagar also downplayed a rivalry: “We just want to be friends – that’s our policy.”
I believe there is more of a desire to preserve live orchestral music for the future of the community than the “us or it’s nobody” approach which I think is admirable on Jeannine’s part.
I have to admit I am finding it hard to write about this because it’s close to home, but also because if it’s really going this way, it’s such a tragedy for a thriving community, as well as for the stakeholders in the organization to lose their orchestra like this. People need to know about it and I would be more than willing to talk to anyone there to share any thoughts and/or ideas that might be of help.
Although on the surface it’s understandable, in this instance I wish Wal-Mart wouldn’t Rollback their foundation support!