Symphony Builds Excitement For 2014-15 Season
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
“One thing I want people to know what we’re trying to bring with the season is a renewed sense of excitement and energy for the symphony,” said Tom Stirling, Symphony conductor.
The 2014-15 season starts in September and concludes in May. The seven-concert schedule will include two pops, four classical and one chamber concert. A young artists competition will be held in February, according to Stirling.
More specifics about the 2014-15 concerts will be released at the special chamber concert at 3 p.m. May 11 at the Wagon Wheel Theatre.
“We’re using that as our official kick-off of announcing the season, plus we will also be kicking off our subscription drive for the season at that event, too,” Stirling said.
Subscriptions include all seven concerts, and there will be four different subscriptions to choose from. Stirling said there’s the adult subscription; the student subscription, which is for those 13 years old to college; a children’s subscription; and a family four-pack.
“We are doing an early bird special. So if people get their subscriptions by June 30 ... that will basically save them even more money. Once July 1 comes around, there will be a nice price for that as well,” he said.
People will still be able to buy single-concert tickets, but Stirling said the savings is 20 percent if you buy a subscription versus buying all individually priced tickets.
Up until this year, the Symphony has offered the concerts for free. Stirling said one of the questions the Symphony continues to receive is why it’s charging for tickets now.
“There’s a number of reasons for that, and I think the one thing I want our community to understand is that as wonderful as having a free concert is, a concert is never free. There’s always expenses that are involved. It did create a huge financial burden on the symphony for them to be able to stay financially stable. What I really want is for our audience to understand that just because there’s free admission to a concert, there’s many costs that go into paying for that concert,” Stirling stated. “Good-will offerings were not enough to pay for the concert itself.”
By charging for admission, Stirling said they’re being more fiscally responsible.
“Our number-one cost is our musicians and that’s something that a lot of people in the community don’t understand, who those musicians are,” he said.
Most of the Symphony’s musicians are professionals. They may be part-time professional musicians when it comes to playing with the Symphony, Stirling said, but it’s not a hobby. Playing in the Symphony is part of the way they earn a living.
“That being said, we’re becoming a stronger symphony in the sense that we’re attracting stronger musicians, which also helps us build our overall performance level,” he said.
Symphony of the Lakes currently has 46 musicians on the permanent roster.
“You’re paying for those musicians for the rehearsals we’re doing together, for the time they spend on their own and the concert itself. That number adds up pretty quickly,” he said. “We don’t pay our musicians a ton of money. We’re kind of what I would consider a lower tier of what we pay our musicians compared to other groups in the area.”
As time goes by, he said it’s his hope that as the Symphony continues to be fiscally responsible as an organization that it will be able to pay its musicians more. Many of its musicians come from a long distance to play, although about half of its musicians are professionals from the Winona Lake and Warsaw areas.
Besides buying tickets, Stirling said there are other ways the community can support the Symphony.
“Part of what we’re doing with our season announcement is announcing new levels of giving people can do through what we’re calling our Encore Society. That is an organization that has already been established with the Symphony, we’re just restructuring it a little bit in the amounts that people give,” he said.
Anyone can become a monetary friend of the Symphony with a gift as low as $25. There will be different levels of membership that people can give, and each level includes different benefits.
“Besides the Encore Society, we’ll also have corporate and individual sponsorships. Those are more geared toward the concerts and events themselves, so we’ll be looking for financial support for every event we have in the season. That’s another way people can support the symphony,” he said.
The Symphony also hopes people will sponsor special guest artists. It also wants to get to the point where funds can be delegated to certain sections or a particular member of the orchestra.
Not all support of the Symphony has to be financial. It also wants volunteer help.
“The Symphony Orchestra League will be a group of individuals that will help create the events that we do, whether it becomes any special kind of receptions or events or pre-concert things. We’re looking for people that have some time to volunteer and want to get involved. Obviously, we want people who are interested and sort of have a hunger to help the orchestra,” Stirling explained.
There’s also a symphony committee. If anyone in the community really wants to get involved, the committee is a volunteer group that requires commitment and time. It meets about once a month. “That’s kind of the heart of the organization, that committee. They’re sort of my anchor and my stability in helping me make things run smoothly,” he said.
Locations for the shows will be either at the Wagon Wheel, Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center or the Rodeheaver Auditorium in Winona Lake.
“We do listen to our patrons. We’ve heard a lot of conversation ... about the changes in the sense of, ‘Why aren’t we at Rodeheaver anymore?’ Just so the community understands, there’s a lot that’s involved. We’re trying to branch out in the sense of where we do our performances, not just because we want to be all over the place, but a lot of it has to do with calendars of venues, whether or not they can facilitate our concert, whether or not there’s room,” Stirling said.
Stirling also talked about the Symphony’s short-term and long-term goals.
Short term, he said education and building future audiences is what the Symphony is focused on right now.
“We’re focused on starting to build a subscription base to the Symphony, which will obviously benefit the orchestra. We want people to come out and see the hardworking musicians and the results of that. All of that work pays off when you have an audience that’s there and hearing the outcome of the concert,” Stirling said.
He said they really want to become a true entity in the community that everyone can enjoy.
“I think everyone is aware of how much the arts has a presence here, not only in Warsaw and Winona Lake but in Northern Indiana,” Stirling said. “So we want to bring more opportunities to everyone, including kids. That’s the thing. Education is huge. Our hope is to start some music classes, maybe in late 2014 or early 2015, which will bring supplemental teaching opportunities to our young people. And assist in any way we can to support music in the arts in our schools in local communities. There’s a real hunger for that.”
Education also is part of the Symphony’s long-term goals.
“Long term, there’s a lot of potential, there’s a lot of things being discussed. Our plan lies closely with what the Wagon Wheel is trying to do – building and having a regionally well-known center for the arts, which becomes the center for lives of people in the community,” he said.
The biggest constraint, of course, is finances, he said.
“One thing we want to make sure we continue to do is to make the arts available to as many people as possible, in particular kids,” Stirling stated.
For more information on the Symphony, visit its website at www.symphonyofthelakes.com[[In-content Ad]]
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“One thing I want people to know what we’re trying to bring with the season is a renewed sense of excitement and energy for the symphony,” said Tom Stirling, Symphony conductor.
The 2014-15 season starts in September and concludes in May. The seven-concert schedule will include two pops, four classical and one chamber concert. A young artists competition will be held in February, according to Stirling.
More specifics about the 2014-15 concerts will be released at the special chamber concert at 3 p.m. May 11 at the Wagon Wheel Theatre.
“We’re using that as our official kick-off of announcing the season, plus we will also be kicking off our subscription drive for the season at that event, too,” Stirling said.
Subscriptions include all seven concerts, and there will be four different subscriptions to choose from. Stirling said there’s the adult subscription; the student subscription, which is for those 13 years old to college; a children’s subscription; and a family four-pack.
“We are doing an early bird special. So if people get their subscriptions by June 30 ... that will basically save them even more money. Once July 1 comes around, there will be a nice price for that as well,” he said.
People will still be able to buy single-concert tickets, but Stirling said the savings is 20 percent if you buy a subscription versus buying all individually priced tickets.
Up until this year, the Symphony has offered the concerts for free. Stirling said one of the questions the Symphony continues to receive is why it’s charging for tickets now.
“There’s a number of reasons for that, and I think the one thing I want our community to understand is that as wonderful as having a free concert is, a concert is never free. There’s always expenses that are involved. It did create a huge financial burden on the symphony for them to be able to stay financially stable. What I really want is for our audience to understand that just because there’s free admission to a concert, there’s many costs that go into paying for that concert,” Stirling stated. “Good-will offerings were not enough to pay for the concert itself.”
By charging for admission, Stirling said they’re being more fiscally responsible.
“Our number-one cost is our musicians and that’s something that a lot of people in the community don’t understand, who those musicians are,” he said.
Most of the Symphony’s musicians are professionals. They may be part-time professional musicians when it comes to playing with the Symphony, Stirling said, but it’s not a hobby. Playing in the Symphony is part of the way they earn a living.
“That being said, we’re becoming a stronger symphony in the sense that we’re attracting stronger musicians, which also helps us build our overall performance level,” he said.
Symphony of the Lakes currently has 46 musicians on the permanent roster.
“You’re paying for those musicians for the rehearsals we’re doing together, for the time they spend on their own and the concert itself. That number adds up pretty quickly,” he said. “We don’t pay our musicians a ton of money. We’re kind of what I would consider a lower tier of what we pay our musicians compared to other groups in the area.”
As time goes by, he said it’s his hope that as the Symphony continues to be fiscally responsible as an organization that it will be able to pay its musicians more. Many of its musicians come from a long distance to play, although about half of its musicians are professionals from the Winona Lake and Warsaw areas.
Besides buying tickets, Stirling said there are other ways the community can support the Symphony.
“Part of what we’re doing with our season announcement is announcing new levels of giving people can do through what we’re calling our Encore Society. That is an organization that has already been established with the Symphony, we’re just restructuring it a little bit in the amounts that people give,” he said.
Anyone can become a monetary friend of the Symphony with a gift as low as $25. There will be different levels of membership that people can give, and each level includes different benefits.
“Besides the Encore Society, we’ll also have corporate and individual sponsorships. Those are more geared toward the concerts and events themselves, so we’ll be looking for financial support for every event we have in the season. That’s another way people can support the symphony,” he said.
The Symphony also hopes people will sponsor special guest artists. It also wants to get to the point where funds can be delegated to certain sections or a particular member of the orchestra.
Not all support of the Symphony has to be financial. It also wants volunteer help.
“The Symphony Orchestra League will be a group of individuals that will help create the events that we do, whether it becomes any special kind of receptions or events or pre-concert things. We’re looking for people that have some time to volunteer and want to get involved. Obviously, we want people who are interested and sort of have a hunger to help the orchestra,” Stirling explained.
There’s also a symphony committee. If anyone in the community really wants to get involved, the committee is a volunteer group that requires commitment and time. It meets about once a month. “That’s kind of the heart of the organization, that committee. They’re sort of my anchor and my stability in helping me make things run smoothly,” he said.
Locations for the shows will be either at the Wagon Wheel, Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center or the Rodeheaver Auditorium in Winona Lake.
“We do listen to our patrons. We’ve heard a lot of conversation ... about the changes in the sense of, ‘Why aren’t we at Rodeheaver anymore?’ Just so the community understands, there’s a lot that’s involved. We’re trying to branch out in the sense of where we do our performances, not just because we want to be all over the place, but a lot of it has to do with calendars of venues, whether or not they can facilitate our concert, whether or not there’s room,” Stirling said.
Stirling also talked about the Symphony’s short-term and long-term goals.
Short term, he said education and building future audiences is what the Symphony is focused on right now.
“We’re focused on starting to build a subscription base to the Symphony, which will obviously benefit the orchestra. We want people to come out and see the hardworking musicians and the results of that. All of that work pays off when you have an audience that’s there and hearing the outcome of the concert,” Stirling said.
He said they really want to become a true entity in the community that everyone can enjoy.
“I think everyone is aware of how much the arts has a presence here, not only in Warsaw and Winona Lake but in Northern Indiana,” Stirling said. “So we want to bring more opportunities to everyone, including kids. That’s the thing. Education is huge. Our hope is to start some music classes, maybe in late 2014 or early 2015, which will bring supplemental teaching opportunities to our young people. And assist in any way we can to support music in the arts in our schools in local communities. There’s a real hunger for that.”
Education also is part of the Symphony’s long-term goals.
“Long term, there’s a lot of potential, there’s a lot of things being discussed. Our plan lies closely with what the Wagon Wheel is trying to do – building and having a regionally well-known center for the arts, which becomes the center for lives of people in the community,” he said.
The biggest constraint, of course, is finances, he said.
“One thing we want to make sure we continue to do is to make the arts available to as many people as possible, in particular kids,” Stirling stated.
For more information on the Symphony, visit its website at www.symphonyofthelakes.com[[In-content Ad]]
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