“The Colorado Springs Philharmonic seems to be hitting all the right notes these days,” writes Amy Gillentine in last Tuesday’s (11/22) Colorado Springs Business Journal. “Executive director Nathan Newbrough made bold changes early in his tenure that have resulted in more music and bigger audiences. Newbrough inherited an orchestra that was coming out of bankruptcy and stilled mired in financial difficulties. While the former director put it back on stage, Newbrough managed to increase its audience and its musical offerings. ‘We still aren’t out of the woods,’ he said. ‘But I’d say our day-to-day challenges have evened out. We’ve become an arts organization people can depend on.’ … Starting 2008, he offered first time subscribers a 50 percent discount. If they renewed a second year, they receive a 30 percent discount. ‘We were told, at the outset, that if we kept 40 percent of the first time subscribers, we could consider it successful,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a 60 percent renewal rate.’ … In order to feed the audience’s passion for the Philharmonic, the group is putting more money into programming. … The League of American Orchestras tracks programming across all the nation’s organizations. Newbrough discovered that the Springs group had 70 percent more programming as orchestra’s with the same amount of funding.”
Posted November 29, 2011
