Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 9, 1995 TAG: 9502090048
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For 15 years, the Roanoke Valley Chamber Music Society has featured chamber groups from the cultural capitals of America, Europe and beyond: the Vienna String Sextet, the Australia Ensemble, the Shanghai String Quartet. The Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Ensemble Instrumentale de France.
The next 15 years could be something else again.
For that matter, so could the next 15 months.
Even the month ahead is no picnic for Music Society Executive Director Ann-Marie Horner, who is staring a cash shortfall in the face.
"We've got to decide in a month what to do," Horner said last week. "Two thousand more dollars has just got to come in. If there's going to be a deficit, I have to figure out how to cover it. I haven't booked anything," for next year yet.
"That ought to tell you something. I've usually booked by now."
Truth be told, the Music Society is in trouble.
Horner is certain this season will conclude as scheduled, with concerts by the Czech Republic's Wallinger String Quartet on March 10, and America's own Fedele Trio on April 29.
And she is certain the Music Society will offer concerts next year, too.
She just isn't certain how.
"I know that there is a future, but I just can't figure it out," Horner said. "We could have a yard sale. Or just get more people to come. Because it's cheap."
It is that.
Nine bucks a concert, in fact, if you buy a $45 season ticket. Eleven if you don't. Less if you're a student.
This is because compared to a symphony orchestra, say, or a quartet of rock stars, chamber music comes pretty cheap. A symphony may have 80 or 100 musicians to pay - a chamber ensemble only three or four.
Fees for the groups the Music Society presents at Roanoke College's Olin Hall range from $1,500 to $2,500, Horner said.
This season already has seen the Quatuor Parisii of France, the Arcadia Trio of Germany and Slovenia and Poland's Wilanow String Quartet - which music reviewer Seth Williamson described in this newspaper as "a tremendously accomplished ensemble" following their concert Dec. 7.
Ticket sales alone can conceivably cover the costs of a five-concert season, Horner said.
But the truth is, fewer and fewer people have been coming. Season ticket sales, 224 the first year, have slipped steadily over time, Horner said - to 205, to 195, to 188.
Sometimes the actual concert audience has barely topped 100.
Olin Hall also holds concerts by the college's own popular chamber ensemble, the Kandinsky Trio.
Horner said the Music Society and the Kandinsky Trio have "a friendly competition. I feel like we offer different things."
In addition to declining ticket sales, corporate donors have dropped off, Horner said. "We used to have 20 regular donors. Now we have two or three."
Horner just blames tough times. "And there's too many people out there asking."
"Everybody is very sympathetic," Horner said. "But I guess buying their groceries is more important."
These are, of course, tough times for all the arts.
Government funding is in jeopardy; private funding sources have dried up or disappeared. Locally, many organizations are competing for fewer dollars. It is possible that by the time dust clears, some of them will be gone.
Bert Ely, a financial consultant and music lover who helped to found the Music Society in the late 1970s, said it would be a shame if it was one of them.
"The Roanoke Symphony has always been more on the map, so to speak," than the Music Society, said Ely, who now is a banking consultant living in Northern Virginia. "It's possible it [the Music Society] just never got enough of a critical mass" to sustain itself.
But Ely also said, "I think it would be a real loss to the valley if it were to shut down.
"One of the things you find with a lot of arts groups is when its existence is threatened, that's when people rally," Ely said. "I would hope, speaking as one of the founders of the group, that the valley will respond."
Horner just hopes they come to concerts.
"How to get more people involved is really the bottom line," Horner said. "What we need is more people to come to events. If we sold more season tickets, I wouldn't have to ask people to donate money."
by CNB