“The Beaufort Symphony Orchestra is no longer in the red and will be able to finish its 2015-2016 concert season, officials said this week,” writes Mindy Lucas on Thursday (12/10) in the Beaufort Gazette (Beaufort, S.C.) “Board members found out last week that the organization had more than cleared the $30,000 needed to put the 50-member orchestra on stable footing…. Just before Thanksgiving, [board president Ed] Like sent an open letter to Beaufort residents letting the community know the orchestra was on shaky financial ground and that additional money was needed to pay for its contracted musicians as well as other expenses…. In 2014, the orchestra decided to leave the University of South Carolina Beaufort after a 24-year run at the university’s Center for Performing Arts [after] the university raised the rent…. [The] board made the decision to move the orchestra’s base of operations to the Sea Island Presbyterian Church but needed to build a platform for the orchestra … which cost $15,000, [wiping] out the organization’s reserves…. The organization now has a little over $80,000 in its coffers—money that will allow the orchestra to … perform its April and May concerts.”
Posted December 11, 2015
