In Thursday’s (6/5) New York Times, Rebecca Schmid reports, “The Strasbourg Music Festival has closed its doors just days before Sunday’s opening concert. France’s oldest classical music festival, the event was scheduled to run through June 15 and feature prominent artists such as the pianist Krystian Zimerman and the conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner, leading the English Baroque Soloists. Marc-Daniel Roth, president of the Society of Music Friends of Strasbourg, which administers the festival, said poor ticket sales had left a deficit of 300,000 euros ($407,000). ‘I decided it would better to file for bankruptcy before inviting orchestras to play for nothing and wasting public subsidies,’ he said by phone. The announcement was made late Tuesday. It was unclear if it would return next summer. ‘If the city wants to revive a festival next year, it is in its hands,’ Mr. Roth said. Mr. Roth said the festival had not done enough to build its audience, and acknowledged the loss of concert-goers to the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, a 2,500 seat opera house just over the German border which, since 1999, has held a Pentecost Festival around the same time.”
Posted June 6, 2014
