A little bit about the arts and money

Well, since the concert is over, we're back to school programs. Today we did two of our middle school program at the Joslyn Art Museum, and we'll do two more there tomorrow. Apparently, our program is one of the workshops the students can choose in a whole day of art activities at the museum. Isn't that cool? The Joslyn is working with both Opera Omaha and the Omaha Symphony for us to be there. Apparently, there are a lot of grants available for collaboration between arts organizations, and now more than ever, grant money is crucial for the survival of arts organizations. Frankly, any money is hard to come by in the current economic climate. Just this week, Opera Pacific (out of Orange County, California) announced that it was canceling the remainder of its current season due to financial problems. Essentially, the company is several million dollars in the red, and its donors have had to pull promised funding. It remains to be seen whether this is the first of many to go under.

What does this mean for performers? Well, besides the obvious (companies closing doors = fewer performances = fewer jobs), it also means that companies are no longer able to plan their seasons several years in advance. Where opera companies used to plan three or four years in advance, they are now not able to do that because they don't know where the money is coming from. Not only are donors not giving as much, but ticket buyers are buying single tickets instead of season subscriptions, so it's even harder for companies to estimate how much money to count on. This all means that performers are not being contracted many years in advance. For someone like me, who is just starting out, this could be both good and bad. I'm sure you can connect those dots.

I could write more about that, but I won't right now. There are all kinds of factors, including unions, that I don't know enough about yet, and frankly, I am super glad not to be working in arts administration (or any other nonprofit, for that matter) at this point in history. I am VERY glad to be performing, doing outreach for kids who are still totally excited to learn, and working with fantastic people while at this particular point in a singing career, about which I am really optimistic.