The Zell Family Foundation has made a $17 million gift for the naming of the position of Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director, now held by Riccardo Muti.
photo by Todd Rosenberg

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra today said it received two contributions totaling $32 million. The two gifts are the largest in the 123-year history of what is considered one of the world's greatest orchestras.
Helen and Sam Zell, who head the Chicago-based Zell Family Foundation, have made a $17 million contribution to the Symphony's endowment and general operating funds. Among other things, monies from the gift will be used to name, in perpetuity, the position of Music Director at the Symphony, which has been held by Riccardo Muti since 2010. Muti recently renewed his contract for five years through the 2019-20 season.
Sam Zell is the well-known Chicago real estate mogul and businessman who owned the Tribune Co. for a turbulent period of time that included a plunge into bankruptcy. His wife Helen Zell has been a member of the CSO's Board of Trustees since 2007.
A second gift of $15 million is being made by the Chicago-based Negaunee Foundation to support the work of the Chicago Symphony's Institute for Learning, Access and Training, which will be known going forward as the Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony.
The Institute was established as the education and community outreach arm of the CSO. The Institute typically engages with some 200,000 children, teens and adults of diverse incomes every year. Founded in 1987, the Negaunee Foundation has made gifts to the CSO in the past, but today's gift is the largest.

Kevin Smith has put out the word: If you want to help the Minnesota Orchestra, no idea is dumb and no donation too small.
Last week’s announcement of $13.2 million in private donations, including an extraordinary $10 million gift, certainly buoyed Smith’s new job as the orchestra’s interim president.
But the windfall doesn’t lessen Smith’s ardor for democracy and collaboration as he leads Minnesota’s largest and oldest performing-arts group out of its darkest period.
“The dynamic here is not out of control, but it’s wild right now,” said Smith as the orchestra prepares a month of season-opening concerts and events — including a gala Friday with Renée Fleming. (Remember? She sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl.)
So if you have thoughts on how the orchestra can avoid long lockouts, big annual deficits, public scorn and international ridicule, come on in.
Smith is betting team spirit will sell tickets to the orchestra’s first full season in three years, win grass-roots donations and burnish a brand badly damaged by the longest lockout in American symphonic history.
Smith, longtime head of the Minnesota Opera, is only temping as the orchestra board searches for a permanent replacement for the departing Michael Henson.

The Arizona Opera erases its debt.

April 09, 2014 12:00 am  •  By Cathalena E. Burch

Arizona Opera has signed on one of the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurers to a four-year deal as a season title sponsor, a move that will effectively erase the biggest debt from the company’s longterm deficit.

Arizona Opera has had a $1.6 million revolving line of credit with CopperPoint Mutual, formerly SCF Arizona, since 2007. At the end of the four-year deal, which runs through the 2017-18 season, that debt will be erased.  Under the agreement, CopperPoint will appear in all marketing materials for the opera’s seasons, including the season brochures.

May 01, 2014 12:00 am  •  By Cathalena E. Burch

AZ Opera meets $1M challenge, erases debt Company raises $500,000 to collect challenge gift.
Arizona Opera has launched its second Million Dollar May fundraising campaign after an anonymous donor in Phoenix offered up a $500,000 challenge. The donor agreed last week to give the money to the company if it can raise an additional $500,000 in donations by June 30. 

The Opera Theatre of St. Louis saw both subscription revenue and attendance increase by 8.1 percent in 2013-2014.
    Both subscription revenue and attendance have increased by 8.1 percent thus far this year at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, making 2014 the company’s highest grossing subscription season in five years.
    With one week remaining in its 2014 season, Opera Theatre has generated $914,668 in subscription revenue thus far, according to spokesperson Anh Le. The company’s annual operating budget is projecting it will close out the fiscal year at about $9.3 million.
    More than 17 percent of subscribers to this year’s season are new subscribers, many of whom were introduced to the organization through Opera Theatre’s Young Friends program. Subscriptions to the Young Friends program have increased 93 percent over the past two years, and all four Young Friends events offered during the season sold out, as did a preseason event at the Contemporary Art Museum with Isaac Mizrahi, whose new production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” is part of this year’s season.
    “We are encouraged by the growth of subscription audiences, which represent the cornerstone of our support,” Tim O’Leary, Opera Theatre’s general director, said in a statement.

The San Antonio Symphony celebrated its 75th anniversary!

To say this is a year of milestones for the San Antonio Symphony is an understatement. The symphony is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a concert featuring renowned violinist Joshua Bell in a lineup of pieces that will almost exactly replicate the symphony’s inaugural performance in 1939. The concert also will mark the symphony’s final performance of the season at the Majestic Theatre. It will open its 2014-2015 season as a resident of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, where it will present both classical performances and pop concerts. Sebastian Lang-Lessing, the symphony’s music director, spoke with us about the symphony’s history and about why its move to the Tobin will help it remain an integral part of the Alamo City’s culture for years to come.