Not even a bump in donations could stop the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from adding more than $1 million to its accumulated debt during its 2013 fiscal year, it reported on Tuesday afternoon. You can thank falling ticket sales for that.
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Tuesday’s annual general meeting had to be one of the most significant in the past decade, coinciding with falling ticket sales, a rising deficit, the departure of CEO Andrew Shaw and a substantial restructuring, which has seen people in the administrative and marketing departments lose their jobs. There have also been cuts in the Orchestra’s longstanding educational outreach activities.
The most significant news of 2013, as far as I can see, is a $1.5 million drop in ticket revenues — from $9,831,598 in the year ended June 30, 2012, to $8,300,476 in the year ended June 30, 2013.
That’s a nearly 15 per cent decline.
Given that the Toronto Symphony was already running a deficit in 2012, it’s no surprise that, even with a massive bump in fundraising and a transfer of more than $2 million from the Toronto Symphony Foundation, the deficit exceeded last year’s $986,000.
The lavishly illustrated annual report did not cite the organization’s accumulated debt — secured by a new line of credit — which now is probably in excess of $10 million. The Symphony cites $176,995 in interest charges in 2013 versus $108,132 in 2012.
The good news in all of this is that the organization was able to raise its overall revenue from donations by 21 per cent over 2012 — surely a vote of confidence from its loyal patrons.
The Toronto Symphony states that it derived 10 per cent of its income from gifts shared by the Toronto Symphony Foundation and the Toronto Symphony Volunteer Committee, fundraising and special events brought in 26 per cent of total proceeds, government grants 24 per cent, and ticket sales 40 per cent.
Total revenue from the 2012-13 season was $23,276,744, compared to $24,550,586 in 2011-12.
Last season, the orchestra presented 130 concerts — 106 of them at its rented home for the past 30 years: Roy Thomson Hall.
Music director Peter Oundjian, now in his 10th season with the Toronto Symphony, has a contract to 2017. And, despite the current financial woes, the orchestra is planning a European tour this coming summer. The musicians signed a new labour contract a few months ago.
The board is currently searching for a new CEO to replace Shaw, who spent the first half of his 12-year tenure rebuilding the organization’s financial and administrative fortunes after a brush with disaster at the start of the millennium — then seeing many financial gains evaporate in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis.
Shaw steadfastly maintained year after year that, as long as interest rates stayed low, there were far more important ways to spend money than on paying down an accumulated debt. But he hadn’t counted on that debt increasing so substantially.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
