Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra Doing Great, Despite it All

The Post reports that SLSO had a great 2008 holiday season, with revenues up over 12 percent over 2007. While they're looking at numbers for holiday programs only, rather than the season as a whole, I still think that is good news. And I think this gets to the heart of what got us in trouble in this country in the first place; David Robertson and company have done a superlative job of balancing mainstream and new, edgy programming. They have not succumbed to the temptation to stuff their seasons full of predictable easy sells; they've not only busted their knuckles creating appealing but innovative programming, but they've worked hard to find ways of reaching the public and getting them excited about classical music. In other words, they've approached the symphony with the opposite of bubble thinking. They know that over the long haul, audience trust is worth far more than just making this quarter's numbers. They are also not afraid of hard work, or doing things right the first time. What got us into trouble in America, in the car industry as well as the art industry, was this Lottery mentality, where people seemed to be allergic not just to risk, but to hard work. How else can you explain the spate of movies released in the last 5 to 10 years based on 1970s TV shows? Or the excess of carbon-copy Broadway shows based on recycled culture, that had no real narrative thread to them? Or the ubiquity of the phrase "feel-good hit of the year?" No one can live by marshmallow fluff alone, physically or mentally. SLSO's approach makes room for the fun stuff, but it doesn't shy away from the cathartic, the new or the challenging. Here's to an even better 2009. —Stefene Russell