How can orchestras and ensembles survive?

Classical music is facing a crisis. How can orchestras and ensembles cope?

First, which are the problems?

• Less attention for classical music in general and in schools in particular - the result of government policies.
• Economic crisis, leading governments to cut subsidies.
• The internet requires new business models.

When it comes to solutions, funding is an obvious first:

• Sponsoring.
• Promotion.
• Extra performances, provided the marginal costs are limited.
• Try to attract new audiences (without alienating existing ones).
• Increase income per listener (subscriptions, donations, CD sales, memorabilia, etc.).
• New subscription services.
• Cooperations.
• Serve children.

The internet forces orchestras and ensembles to redefine what they do:

• Hang on to core values (live performance, focus on specific genres) only.
• Follow your audience, looking for internet delivery (such as The Digital Concert Hall from the Berlin Philharmonic).
• Move away from specific windows (i.e. live performance) and make music available on demand. This could range from providing CD recordings of concerts, provided immediately afterwards. Other options: (internet) radio, streaming, YouTube live, YouTube channel, digital TV channel, Medici.tv.
• Build apps (e.g. NY Philharmonic, London PO, Detroit SO).
• Broaden the repertory.

Broadening the repertory:

• For instance, don't focus on avant-garde in a traditional sense, but on avant-garde music of all ages.
• Actively sollicit new music from any composer (a la Ensemble intercontemporain), instead of ordering new pieces from specific composers.
• Orchestrations of chamber music.
• Reductions of orchestral pieces for ensemble (e.g. Verein für Musikalische Privataufführungen, Elmer Schönberger, Eberhard Kloke, David Matthews, Andreas Tarkmann).

Promotion:

• Newsletter (email).
• Sponsoring (friends of the orchestra).
• Social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, SoundCloud, Spotify).
• Ambassadors (celebrities, politicians, corporate leaders).
• Engage friended international established musicians.

Subscription services:

• Concerts, full season tickets.
• Rehearsals.
• Supporters (friends).
• CDs.
• Soloists paying the orchestra for accompaniment (2-sided business model).
• New services to develop with peer ensembles (ASKO|Schönberg, Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, MusikFabri/k etc.).

Cooperations:

• Orchestra + ensemble concerts for pieces such as Britten - War Requiem, Dutilleux - Second Symphony, Escher - Summer rites at noon, Stockhausen - Gruppen etc.
• Multi-discipline concerts across different art forms (cf. AAA-series at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra).

Concerts for children:

• Don't just let the kids come to you, but ensembles can visit schools.
• Don't underestimate children. Wouldn't it be cool to confront them with Georg Friedrich Haas - In vain?