Yahoo Finance How the Charlotte Symphony quietly raised $41 million to help ensure a stable future
In a surprise announcement, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra said it is solidifying its financial future with an ambitious $50 million fundraising campaign to solve an issue that has bedeviled it for decades — ensuring the stability of its endowment.
On Wednesday, the orchestra unveiled details of the campaign, which already had quietly raised $41 million. That includes $10 million each from Bank of America and the C.D. Spangler Foundation, and $5 million from Knight Foundation.
Between that fundraising and ongoing community support, orchestra leaders said the nonprofit will be more financially sound now than at any other time in its 92-year history. The orchestra had not publicly discussed the campaign’s scope until now.
“This campaign is going to solve a major problem that the symphony has wrestled with for years, of not having a big enough endowment to help balance its budget,” said orchestra president and CEO David Fisk, in an interview with The Charlotte Observer. “It’s giving us future stability in a way that we’ve never been able to enjoy before.”
Rather than have an endowment approximately the size of the orchestra’s general operating budget — about $12.5 million — the infusion of money will elevate the endowment to over $50 million, according to Fisk.
That will make its endowment comparable to peer companies, help further expand the CSO’s work in the community and enhance its efforts to provide innovative and diverse local programming, said Fisk and retired Bank of America executive Pat Phillips, the chair of the campaign.
All this happened as the orchestra’s new leader, maestro Kwamé Ryan, arrived in Charlotte this week ahead of a weekend performance, his first since being named music director in December. He made history as the first person of color chosen to lead the CSO.
Raise the baton: Inside a pivotal week for new Charlotte Symphony conductor Kwamé Ryan
With Ryan starting now, the first conversation Fisk had with the new maestro differed from the one Ryan’s predecessor, Christopher Warren-Green, would have had with the CEO at that time. “He (Warren-Green) joined (in 2010) at a time of financial crisis,” Fisk said. “And creating stability is what this is all about.”
That financial stability will better equip Ryan to implement his inclusive vision for the orchestra and all that he wants to accomplish, Phillips and Fisk said.
Fluctuating finances for the CSO
Like so many other arts and culture nonprofits locally and nationally, the Charlotte Symphony was hit hard by the pandemic’s financial impact. The company also was grappling with the pending loss of Thrive funding, a 10-year plan to underwrite local arts and culture groups.
The orchestra made it through COVID thanks to federal funds, as well as local government support. That bought it time to reach out to city and business leaders about what a new capital campaign might look like.
The Charlotte Observer reviewed the Charlotte Symphony’s three most recent publicly available tax returns, through the 2021-22 fiscal year. They showed that the orchestra ran a deficit in its general operating budget in 2019-20 before rebounding the next two years.
Its endowment in 2021-22 stood at nearly $11.6 million, a 13.5% decrease from the prior fiscal year. That was the second time in the past eight years that the fluctuating endowment experienced a year-over-year drop, records showed.
Phillips, a former board chair of the orchestra, said he wanted to work on the new campaign not only to address financial issues but also because of how the CSO has embraced being part of the entire city by getting out of uptown’s cozy confines.
Stabilizing funding ensures that work will continue to grow, he said, with such programs as free concerts in the community from a mobile stage.
Inside the $50 million CSO fundraising campaign
In late 2022, Brian Moynihan and Hugh McColl, the current and former CEOs of Bank of America, came on as honorary co-chairs and helped launch the capital drive with the Spanglers.
McColl, a longtime supporter of the orchestra and other arts groups in the Charlotte region, also had led the start of the Thrive fund.
Fundraising leaders looked at endowment for peer orchestras, Phillips said, and saw Charlotte lagging behind. Fort Worth, Texas, had 10% of its annual budget come from income off of its endowment, while Sarasota, Florida, counted on 16% funding and Omaha, Nebraska, had 23%.
“So you’re looking at that,” Phillips said, “and you begin to understand why there’s such a need for an endowment that provides a foundational footing for the financial performance of the symphony.”
The Charlotte Symphony, he said, was hovering under 5%. With the new funding, the orchestra should be able to draw about 10% from its endowment income, Fisk said. He expects the campaign to wrap up by the end of the year.
About $40 million will go straight into the endowment. The remaining $10 million will help cover general operating costs until the endowment generates enough interest to be drawn down to help fund the annual budget.
“What we’re doing with this campaign,” Fisk said, “is not just solving the problems from the past. It’s also about building the kind of future we want to see for the symphony and for Charlotte.
“It enables us to focus on providing as good a quality service through live music and education as we possibly can to everybody who would like to be able to participate in it.”
Ryan takes the baton
As for Ryan, the CSO’s 12th maestro addressed a group of community leaders and philanthropists Tuesday night at a gathering at Bank of America headquarters in uptown.
He spoke of how an orchestra reflects the culture of its community.
“I’d say that my key mission for the Charlotte Symphony is to bring some enrichment to the artistic vision and the impact that the symphony has in this town,” Ryan said. “So that with time, in the country, whenever people speak about Charlotte, they... think about orchestral music and orchestral excellence.
He’ll conduct this weekend as music director designate, then begin his four-year contract as music director at the start of the 2024-25 season. That begins in October. And for good measure, the orchestra unveiled its plans for the new season Wednesday too.
The 2024-25 Charlotte Symphony season
Here are highlights of the orchestra’s 2024-25 classical season, it’s 93rd:
▪ Oct. 25-26: The season opens with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 featuring pianist Chaeyoung Park in a program led by Joana Carneiro. Also featured are Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour.
▪ Nov. 8-10: Volinist Amaryn Olmeda joins the CSO and conductor Anthony Parnther for Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. The program also features Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A minor and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9.
▪ Nov. 22-23: In his first concerts as music director, Ryan will lead the symphony, Charlotte Master Chorale, soprano Janai Brugger, and baritone Alexander Birch Elliott in Brahms A German Requiem. The program opens with Musica Dolorosa by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks.
▪ Jan. 10-12, 2025: Led by Jeri Lynne Johnson, Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto No. 6 and Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Winds will feature pianist Orion Weiss. Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 also is on the program.
▪ Feb. 14-15, 2025: Pianist Olga Kern performs R. Schumann’s Piano Concerto. The program also features Elgar’s Enigma Variations led by Ruth Reinhardt.
▪ March 7–8, 2025: Ryan returns for Respighi’s Roman Festivals, alongside Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring pianist Louis Schwizgebel. The program opens with the U.S. premiere of The Downfall of Gaius Verres by British composer Adam Walters, whose music is infused with the cultural traditions of Trinidad and Tobago, where he and Ryan met and began their long-standing artistic collaboration. Ryan grew up on the island of Trinidad.
▪ March 21-22, 2025: Former CSO Music Director Christof Perick returns for an evening of Wagner, showcasing highlights from the composer’s operas.
▪ April 4-5, 2025: Bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer returns to the Charlotte Symphony to perform Bottesini’s Concerto for Double Bass No. 2 and Meyer’s own Double Bass Concerto No. 1. Led by Andre Raphel, the program, also includes Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8.
▪ April 25, 26, 2025: In a program led by Resident Conductor Christopher James Lees, cellist Andrea Casarrubios performs her work, MIRAGE, in program culminating in Debussy’s La Mer.
▪ May 16-18, 2025: Conductor Laureate Warren-Green returns to lead the orchestra in Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from “On the Waterfront” and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances for the classical series finale. He is joined by clarinetist Anthony McGill for Copland’s jazzy Clarinet Concerto,
▪ Sunday matinee performances, which are free for children ages 6 to 12, include Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 on Nov. 10, Handel’s Messiah on Dec. 15, Bach and Mozart on Jan. 12, 2025, and Bernstein and Copland on May 18, 2025.
For more details, go to charlottesymphony.org/.
Observer reporter Catherine Muccigrosso contributed to this report
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