Enduring Crisis, Ensuring Survival: Artistry, Economics, and the American Symphony Orchestra

Abstract

Long considered one of the western world’s cultural treasures, the symphony orchestra’s artistic significance belies an institutional history replete with unsolved paradoxes. Since at least 1900, the classical performing arts have struggled to reconcile artistic creation with economic and cultural sustainability. This tension is rooted in a variety of management models that employ distinct ownership structures, revenue streams, and artistic ideologies. Along with various other factors, these models have played a decisive though often ignored role in determining artistic practices and audience reception, especially in America. My dissertation argues that the organizational structure employed by orchestras since the late-nineteenth century is fundamental to understanding the challenges they face today. Drawing from the domains of historical musicology and organizational theory, this project uses the analytic lens of structure—including governance arrangements, financial systems, social hierarchies, institutional logics, and artistic initiatives—to explain the orchestra’s turbulent yet resilient history. Chapter 1 develops a framework to demonstrate how structure has influenced orchestral culture and performance practice. Several early operating models are introduced and compared to the corporate structure adopted by twentieth-century American orchestras. Chapter 2 explores the New York Philharmonic’s evolution from a musician-owned-and-managed cooperative to a board-governed nonprofit, a transition shaped by the ideals—and wallets—of a new philanthropic elite. Chapter 3 scrutinizes the Louisville Orchestra New Music Project (1948–58), which supported over one hundred world premieres and inspired a shift in how orchestras foster the creation of contemporary music. Chapter 4 examines the development of a global youth orchestra movement, El Sistema, whose recent transplantation to the U.S. highlights a conflict between traditional definitions of artistic excellence, commercial viability, and social change. The dissertation concludes by synthesizing these strains of evidence and positing some solutions for the orchestra’s contemporary challenges, connecting past and present to uncover new perspectives on high art music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

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