The Pasadena Symphony is the latest regional orchestra to get itself into financial hot water. It won’t be the last. So many second- and third-tier American orchestras are currently struggling to survive that I’ve been asking myself, not for the first time, whether such institutions may possibly have outlived their artistic usefulness. Do regional orchestras make artistic sense now that the ubiquity of downloadable digital music has rendered obsolete their historic function of bringing classical-music masterpieces to smaller communities? Or can these floundering ensembles be successfully “repurposed” for the twenty-first century?
These tough questions are the subject of my “Sightings” column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. If, like me, you wonder whether and why regional orchestras ought to be saved, pick up a copy of Saturday’s paper and see what I have to say.
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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