had restructured its board, shortened its season, and radically tightened its budget. By the end of January 2002, everybody was feeling shakily optimistic. Then, on Friday, February 1, in the middle of a performance of Samuel Barber’s Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Music Director Hans Vonk stopped conducting, unable to turn the page. By April, Vonk had resigned due to health concerns. Over the next two seasons, attendance and annual giving spiraled downward. Afraid that even the boost in endowment wouldn’t save the
admired the “sheer cussedness” of musicians who found music important enough to put all their effort into it, no matter what. “The things they went through would have taken down many another group,” Robertson observes. “I’m talking about a situation where you think literally there isn’t another thing that can go wrong, and then your music director is unable to continue conducting in the middle of a concert and, in full view of the public, has to be helped off the stage. And strangely enough, even that didn’t cut the momentum.” By September 2005, when the new sea-
Orchestra, where he was president and CEO from 2002 to 2008, he’d pulled ticket sales out of freefall, increased the endowment, and balanced the budget four years in a row. Recognized for his aptitude in marketing and fundraising, he had an instinct for balanced, imaginative programming that appealed to a wide swath of concertgoers. Word of Bronstein’s move reached Adam Crane, a driven 34-year-old who grew up in St. Louis and earned a degree in music
SLSO violinist Rebecca Boyer Hall
orchestra, the board brought in financial whiz Randy Adams as a consultant, then hired him as executive director and president. He made relentless cost cuts and financial reforms, steering hard to turn the orchestra in the right direction. But when the musicians walked out in January 2005, unable to come to terms with a management that had battened down all hatches, quite a few subscribers left with them. That spring’s labor negotiations were painful all around, but what followed cheered the orchestra. They’d worked valiantly for three years without a music director. Now Adams was offering the role to conductor David Robertson, an American rising star who was music director at the Orchestre National de Lyon and principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The message was clear: The SLSO might be pinching pennies, but it was not going to give up its place as a firsttier orchestra. Robertson says his agent urged him not to accept the position. But the conductor
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Scott Ferguson
SLSO cellist Bjorn Ranheim
business at New York University. Crane was director of public relations for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (and if you’ve read or seen The Soloist, you’ll know how effective he was). He decided to move back to his hometown and join the SLSO as director of communications. “I saw what Fred had done in Dallas,” he says simply. In St. Louis, the challenge would be even greater. Since 2002, the size of the audience had shrunk by nearly 25 percent. “This audience thing isn’t a problem,” Bronstein told the board, “it’s a crisis.” The organization was finishing every year in red ink, and annual operating revenues were either declining or stagnant. “That told me we needed to focus on the fundamentals: programming, marketing, sales, communication, annual fundraising, sponsorships,” Bronstein says now. “And the audience was number one, because no matter how much money you raise, audience decline will kill you. “Programming is a delicate balance,” Bronstein continues with a grin. He’s well aware that Robertson is passionate about contemporary music, and he’s thrilled to have a music director who’s comfortable on
son opened, Robertson was on board. He continued conducting the BBC and major orchestras and festivals around the world, but he focused his artistic energy and warm enthusiasm in St. Louis—and the musicians responded. So did the community, and the critics. The SLSO started getting regular invitations to Carnegie Hall again. And on December 5, 2005, The New Yorker published an article by Alex Ross titled “The Evangelist: David Robertson Lifts Up the St. Louis Symphony.” Under New Management
Robertson brought critical acclaim back to the SLSO, but even he couldn’t turn around box-office revenue. So in March 2008, the board recruited a new president and executive director: Fred Bronstein. Trained as a classical pianist, Bronstein understood musicians, but he also understood the business of music-making. At the Dallas Symphony
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