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From: DeepBlue <dan.koren@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Subject: Re: The San Francisco Symphony is in financial trouble according to the NY
 Times
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2024 20:35:19 +0000
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Roland van Gaalen wrote:
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/arts/music/san-francisco-symphony-esa-pekka-salonen.html

As usual, the article either misses or
deliberately ignores the root causes of
the problem, which have less to do with
Finn fashion models than with economics.

San Francisco is a relatively small city,
barely one tenth the size of NYC, on the
West side of the SF Bay Area. Access to
the city is limited to 2 bridges, and 3
highways. Traffic into and out of the
city often backs up, making driving to
Davies emotionally taxing and difficult
to plan and execute. Public transport in
and around the SF Bay Area is not as well
connected as in other major US cities. For
most people taking a bus and/or a train
into SF for a concert at Davies does not
save any time over driving there.

Parking is scarce and expensive. To make
it to a 7:30 pm concert from outside the
city one must leave no later than 5 pm.
Over time this has eroded willingness to
purchase season subscriptions. I stopped
buying subscriptions in the early 2000s,
as did so many other people. In the past
two decades I cherry picked the concerts
I attended and car pooled with others.

When EPS took over from MTT I predicted
it wasn't going to work, earning my right
to say "I told you so". He tried to take
the SFS into a direction the audience did
not like, re-balancing repertoire in a way
that did not resonate with local audiences.

MTT always had a keen ear for the musical
interests of his audience, and managed to
build a solid business around them. EPS is
far more interested in finding a path to
the future than in meeting the needs of
the audience. Good riddance!

I hope the next SFS chief conductor will
be a woman rather than a fashion model!