In today’s (2/4) Portland Press Herald (Maine), Bob Keyes reports that “the Portland Symphony Orchestra today announced that it is cutting jobs, reducing salaries and artist fees, canceling performances and trimming educational programs in an attempt to fill a $220,000 budget deficit for the fiscal year that ends July 31. In addition, the orchestra is examining all aspects of its operation in an effort to reduce expenses to avoid future deficits, said Executive Director Ari Solotoff. … Cost-saving measures announced today include canceling the 2009 Independence Pops concerts, which are scheduled each summer around the Fourth of July; reducing administrative costs by eliminating two full-time positions and cutting the pay of senior staffers by 10 percent; and eliminating two spring youth concerts and scrapping a side-by-side youth program, in which student musicians performed alongside PSO musicians. The orchestra also will adjust the makeup of its concert programming in the spring, so it can perform music that requires fewer musicians, Solotoff said.”
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