Gifts, Pledges Raise Symphony’s Spirits : With Only $336,000 to Go, Leaders Predict ‘Victory Celebration’

The chorus of gloom that has pervaded Symphony Hall since orchestra managers threatened to declare bankruptcy was replaced Thursday by enthusiastic optimism as San Diegans continued to pledge money and deliver checks to bail out the financially troubled organization.

With the symphony only $336,000 short of its $2-million crash fund-raising goal, there appeared to be little doubt Thursday night that the effort would succeed by the time the orchestra’s self-imposed deadline arrives Monday.

In the symphony offices downtown, workers who days ago had feared for the orchestra’s future were busy counting the money and predicting victory. The mood, in fact, was almost cocky.

“We just got a law firm to underwrite the victory celebration concert next Thursday,” development director Ken Overstreet said as he poked his head into the office of Richard Bass, the symphony’s general manager. Overstreet said later that the firm of McInnis Fitzgerald Rees Sharkey & McIntyre had donated $5,000 to sponsor the March 13 performance, which won’t be staged unless the financial crisis is solved.

Thursday’s sense of elation stemmed from a fund-raising telethon Wednesday night on KUSI (Channel 51). The event provided a financial boost and an emotional shot in the arm.

Organized in 72 hours, the telethon raised more than $200,000 from community supporters of the debt-ridden symphony. It came on the heels of two days in which fund-raising efforts netted less than $50,000.

Wednesday night, callers jammed 30 telephone lines for almost three hours, before and after the show. Many called to “adopt” musical instruments at $100 a crack. Various professionals, from doctors and lawyers to florists, challenged fellow members of their professions to match their grants.

“The response to the telethon was nothing short of incredible,” symphony President M.B. (Det) Merryman said. He called it “a resounding vote of confidence from the community in what the symphony has accomplished in the last four years.”

“I’m feeling very optimistic for the first time. I think we’ll make it,” Merryman added.

He said he “had no idea” whether the telethon and an earlier “radiothon” Sunday, which netted more than $60,000, would affect a scheduled radiothon later this spring. He said that even if the symphony reaches its $2-million goal, “we still have our work cut out for us” to raise an additional $900,000 during the rest of the year to meet the needs of the operating budget.

Once the $2 million is in the bank, it will be used to clear the symphony’s books of debt accumulated over several years, including the current season. Almost half the money will go to repay loans--$625,000 to a consortium headed by San Diego National Bank and $305,000 in loans from members of the symphony’s board of directors.

According to symphony comptroller Carol Sabin, $557,000 is owed to vendors who have supplied products or services to the symphony. These bills include more than $100,000 in legal fees; $60,000 for printers and art designers for brochures, programs and flyers; $60,000 for royalties on sheet music; $42,000 for fireworks at the Summer Pops, and $30,000 for radio station advertising. The symphony owes the state Franchise Tax Board $25,000 in unpaid sales taxes on food and beverages sold at last summer’s pops concerts.

Finally, the orchestra’s workers, from the general manager to the conductor to the stagehands, are owed $200,000 in back pay.

Still, symphony officials acknowledged Thursday that as soon as the $2 million bail-out clears years of debts from the books, new bills will begin to pile up. At its current pace, the symphony expects to run a deficit of $116,000 this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, Sabin said.

The deficit could climb by $330,000 if the musician’s union succeeds in blocking a threatened 19% wage cut for the remainder of the year.

Even those numbers are based on what Sabin termed optimistic projections. She said the estimate depends on the assumption that the symphony’s much-advertised fiscal crisis can be converted into good will on the part of local citizens. If that assumption proves false, the deficit could grow.

“With a renewed effort on the board’s part and a very good development director and the city’s awareness of the symphony being here, we might be able to do it,” Sabin said.

According to Sabin’s projections, the orchestra’s fund-raisers still will need to raise almost $900,000 to pay the expenses of the current season--a chore that they would have faced even without the crisis campaign.

More than a third of that amount--$365,000--is expected to come from symphony memberships. An additional $150,000 is budgeted as revenue a radiothon fund-raiser, $85,000 from corporate and civic foundations, and $60,000 from sponsored concerts.