by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Symphony Association is seeing mixed results from their 2005-06 audited financial reports that were released in October.
The business side of the Symphony is broken into two divisions — operating funds and investment funds, said the Jacksonville Symphony Association’s Chairman Gerald Pollack.
“The two divisions add up to a report as a whole,” he said.
The operating fund assets saw a decrease this year of $331,639, but there was an increase in the Association’s overall net assets of $60,102.
“Our operating funds are our main business — the tickets, artists, expenses and donor contributions,” said Pollack. “Our endowment funds consist of investments in stocks, money markets and mutual funds.”
Expenses of $8.1 million — an increase of $982,000 — is a result of a lot of growth within the Symphony, said the Jacksonville Symphony Association’s Executive Director Alan Hopper.
One of the largest line-items in the Symphony’s budget is its artists’ and guest artists’ contracts. It’s expensive to bring in world-renowned violinists like Midori and even local bands like Mofro to play with the Symphony.
“It is 45 percent of our budget— a little over $3.6 million,” said Pollack.
The Symphony has 52 full-time musicians, but there can be up to 90 total musicians depending on the individual program.
Aside from artists contracts, new concerts were also added this past year to add to the increase in expenses.
“We added new concerts to diversify our product line,” he said. “We also had a recording project last year that cost about $90,000. It was a year of significant growth.”
Hopper added the Symphony brought in more guest artists compared to other years and they also held concerts outside of the T-U Center.
“Last year we presented ourselves,” said Hopper. “In the past we were hired by organizations.”
Hopper said the Symphony decided to take the risk of presenting themselves.
“We had to market the concerts outside of T-U Center ourselves and that costs more money,” he said. “It was something new for us and we want to make the Symphony much more regional.”
Hopper said the decision to broaden the Symphony’s audience base was based on the fact the administration felt as if the market was ready for the Symphony to branch out into other areas.
“We wanted to develop the overall quality of the symphony,” he said.
Hopper added there is a trend that is relative to people interested in classical music.
“There is a lot more competition with the FCCJ Artist Series, the Florida Theatre and the Arena,” he said. “We want to expand our audience and attract more people and balance that trend.”
As a result of the Symphony expanding regionally, its ticket sales and concert fees increased to $226,730.
“We had a very good response from those concerts outside (of the T-U Center),” said Hopper. “There was a very significant growth in sales the past two years for our shows here in Jacksonville. But overall we were down a little this year.”
Overall, Pollack said they want to re-evaluate their business model to diversify their product line.
“We get contributions from government grants, endowment funds and donors and sometimes it is hard to get those because the competition is getting tougher,” said Pollack.
Hopper said without the support of the leadership they have gotten throughout the years from the community, the symphony wouldn’t be as successful as it is today.
“The leadership of Jacksonville has made a commitment to have a significant symphony like ours,” he said. “We are so lucky to have such a great symphony hall and support from Jacksonville. It is surprising to have a great symphony in a place of this size.”
The remaining schedule for the 2006-07 Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra season contains several big shows through May. Its “Home for the Holidays” series runs Dec. 15-17 while the Motown Experience is Jan. 19 and 20. The JSO will perform John Williams’ greatest hits March 23 and 24 and “The Barber of Seville” is at the Moran Theater Feb. 24.