Struggling Symphony Cancels Season

One of the state’s wealthiest regions may be about to lose one of its oldest cultural institutions.

After years of financial troubles, the San Jose Symphony has canceled its season, laid off staff and embarked on a major reorganization. The group is one of many symphonies around the nation struggling to retain audiences and funding.

The plight of the orchestra, founded in 1879, is noteworthy because its home city, San Jose, floated for much of the 1990s in a sea of dot-com money. But the riches swept right past the historic symphony.

The group started its recent fiscal year with a deficit of $2.5 million--about a third of its annual budget.

Last week, the symphony board approved a major restructuring that included the resignation of all officials but its chairman. The 30-member staff was laid off. Concerts were canceled. Musicians have not been laid off, but there is only enough money to cover their most recent pay period.

“We’ve had problems for 10 years,” said Dick Gourley, who has volunteered as the symphony’s chief executive since last spring. “This organization’s downfall was accelerated by Sept. 11 but not caused by it.”

A Pebble Beach resident and technology consulting firm executive, Gourley said he hopes the orchestra will be back on stage for performances by February.

To survive, he said, the symphony needs to pare its budget to $4 million and operate with a much smaller staff, roughly half of what it was.

He blamed the symphony’s financial problems on itself.

“Clearly the fault lies with the symphony,” Gourley said. “The folks raising money just missed the boat. The shortfall was primarily in corporate giving. The money was there. We didn’t ask for it.”

Still, over at Opera San Jose, marketing and development director Larry Hancock said less than a fifth of his group’s donations come from Silicon Valley corporations--and they came from the more established ones.

“We were not drawing money from the dot-com bunch,” Hancock said. They were too young and technically oriented to be showering their money on groups like his, he added.

“An enormous percentage of our population are technical people. They’re not necessarily all that inclined to care about any of the beaux arts,” said Hancock, whose 17-year-old group has a $2.6-million budget in the black.

Indeed, to counter any fantasies of huge Silicon Valley donations, Hancock said, he wears a special shirt at budget time. It bears the phrase: “Self delusion thinks all chips.”

“Opera is about the extremes of happiness and desperation,” Hancock said. “For a kid in his 20s drinking beer and having a good time with his buddies--what does he care about the extremes of his emotions? He hasn’t had any.”

There are about 120 orchestras in the state, roughly 50% to 60% of them professional, according to the Assn. of California Symphony Orchestras.

In recent years, both the Sacramento and San Diego symphonies have stumbled.

The San Diego orchestra reorganized and is rebuilding. The Sacramento symphony folded, although a smaller musical group has since emerged with a modest performance schedule.