The Stars of the North

It’s hard to find an orchestra north of Edmonton. This is a city where around this time of year the sun seems to come up at 10 am, set by 2 pm, and never get over about 3 degrees off of the horizon. The nearest city is Calgary, some 4 hours away by car, and just try to a reasonable or convenient flight up there. But the Star of the North is the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the small but mighty ensemble that plays 100 concerts a year for the Edmonton community. Here’s some news……………..

Last week was an exciting one in Edmonton. On Friday we celebrated the 55th anniversary of the first performance of the ESO. The next night I mentioned it to our audience at the top of the show, and at intermission one of our violinist came and told me that we had an original member of the ESO in the audience! So at the top of the 2nd half I acknowledged her and she received a warm reception from the crowd. It seems that the ESO has a warm place in the hearts of those who live way too close to the arctic circle.

We also had our Annual General Meeting last Tuesday. This is an incredibly boring tradition that should probably be scrapped in pursuit of making the world a better place to live, but occasionally there is some interesting information gleaned from the whole dog-and-pony show. If anyone besides the Board, a couple staff, and myself had bothered to attend you would have learned:

The ESO has just completed its 5th straight year in the black.

The ESO has eliminated its deficit and now has no outstanding debts.

The ESO has a 4 year agreement in place with its musicians, a 3 year agreement with the Music Director, and a new Managing Director.

The ESO has just landed a major superstar for our 2008 Gala concert in September (can’t tell you who yet, but this year it was Yo-Yo Ma and with the ’08 Gala we are going to make our fans equally happy) .

All of this is not too bad for an orchestra that 6 years ago was on the verge of collapse. The interesting question really is: why is this working? This is a question for another post(s?). Right now it’s just time to celebrate.