Oh Canada!

It’s an honour to be here: I was a big fan of the work of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (does anyone else recall being especially happy the day their copy of Harmony arrived in the mail?), and I have been following and promoting Polyphonic.org since the site was launched last spring.

Ann’s given our panel a few topics she’d like us to kick around this week, and rather than covering them all in one massive post, I’m going to try to pick off one at a time, AND respond to my colleagues, AND to anyone else who cares to pitch in.

This, as you’ll quickly see, is my “quantitative” post – responding to Ann’s question about the Canadian funding model.

I’ve been executive director of Orchestras Canada since July 2005. Orchestras Canada is a national membership organization for Canada’s professional orchestras. We work on behalf of the Canadian orchestral community through leadership and service in advocacy, communications, networking and professional development. Our membership comprises 38 professional and semi-professional orchestras, 40 community orchestras, 49 youth orchestras, along with music schools, other music organizations, and individuals interested in our work. Compared to the American Symphony Orchestra League, we’re tiny – we have about one-eighth the membership; even without adjusting for the exchange rate, our budget is less than one-twentieth that of the League; and we have about one-twenty-fifth the staffing complement. We’re presently not quite two full-time staff, plus a board of 12 elected and three ex officio members (one each from AFM Canada, the Organization of Canadian Symphony Musicians, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

It would seem that I’m working towards my first clear point about the differences between the Canadian and American orchestral communities: we work in a bigger landmass (9,984,670 square km in Canada vs. 9,631,418 square km in the US), there are a lot fewer of us (32,623,490 Canadians, according to Statistics Canada vs. 300,280,216 Americans, according to some reputable web source or another), and – significantly for those of us who work, or try to work, nationally – we are a bilingual country.

As well, we’ve historically worked within a different understanding than our US counterparts of just where the money will come from. I’m comparing statistics collected by Orchestras Canada in 2004-05 (the most recent year for which the reporting has been completed – we’re hard at work on 2005-06 results now) to 2003-04 data collected by the League and available on their website at http://www.symphony.org/research/pdf/musicmatters.pdf – and here’s what I’ve come up with:

An easy observation: we have a greater expectation than our US counterparts that our governments (at the municipal, provincial and federal levels) will directly and significantly support orchestras through tax revenues, whether through an arms-length agency of government with highly-evolved funding criteria, application and peer assessment processes, like the Canada Council for the Arts and certain provincial granting agencies, or through direct government support. The system rests on the tacit understanding that we all contribute to certain public “goods” through our taxes. But it’s not a level playing field: some provinces (and Quebec is the leading example) and some municipalities have traditionally been very supportive of the arts, and others less so. I also sense the potential for a shift in direction, as Canada’s new federal government calls for tax cuts and a reduced role for government.

But what do the funding differences mean in the working reality of Canadian orchestras?

I don’t feel that I know enough about American orchestras to venture a comprehensive comparison – but here are a few guesses:

· Canadian orchestra organizations may approach the structuring and populating of their boards of directors and staff teams somewhat differently;

· Canadian orchestras need to be much more aware of, and responsive to, government funders’ granting criteria and assessment protocols;

· Canadian orchestras have only relatively recently started to address the development of endowment funds, and many are challenged to balance fundraising for endowment purposes with the ongoing need for enhanced operating support.

Thoughts? Comments? Smart remarks? I look forward to continuing the discussion this week!