In Saturday’s (10/5) Charlotte Observer (North Carolina), Lawrence Toppman interviews Robert Stickler, in his first full season as the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s executive director. “The region’s largest performing arts organization started its 2013-14 season last month under a guy with no experience in the nonprofit world, lots of business acumen, a passion for classics and the good faith of symphony colleagues, from the music director to a co-chairman of the players’ negotiating committee. Stickler aims to do a thing that hasn’t been accomplished since 2002: finish a season in the black. His chore list started out longer than Mahler’s Third Symphony: Negotiate a new contract with musicians, find sources of revenue in an economy that hasn’t fully rebounded, explore the growth of an endowment and much more…. Stickler is … coming out of a fiscal year where the budget deficit was about $600,000, partly because of expenses that won’t be repeated. His board approved a budget for 2013-14 intended to yield a surplus of $1,000. Jesse Rosen, president of the League of American Orchestras, says two-thirds of the U.S. orchestras in the CSO’s class broke even or reported surpluses for the last year on record (2011). Still, he says, making budget in Charlotte for the first time in 12 years would be ‘a real cause for celebration.’ ”
Posted October 10, 2013
