Metamorphizing Our Symphony Part 2: Building Back Better
December 21 2023 Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
It’s been three months since we heard the news that the directors of the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony organization had decided to declare bankruptcy, cease all operations and resign their positions.
We still don’t know what led them to this course of action (or, to more accurate, inaction). They may have felt that there was no other option. Perhaps, when they looked at the numbers as the orchestra was about to begin a new season, things just didn’t add up. But since the former directors have remained silent, and nothing has been done to allow access to information that might throw light on what actually happened, we can only guess what was in their minds.
There is also uncertainty about where this leaves the KW Symphony as a corporate entity. Wasn’t that board appointed by a membership? When the directors all resign, is that the end of the story? Couldn’t a general meeting of the members simply appoint a new board? Even if there was general agreement that dissolution is the only option, wouldn’t this have to be formalized by the membership in some way?
The future of the KW Symphony is up to us, not the former board or even the current membership. The story, which has been unfolding for 140 years, belongs to all of us. Along with the Grand Philharmonic Choir and the Raffi Armenian Concert Hall, the origins of the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony go back to 1883. That’s when a group of citizens came together to constitute the Berlin Philharmonic and Orchestral Society. This musical legacy is an integral part of the Waterloo County/Region story as a whole, and it will continue to evolve as long as there are even a few people who are willing and able to carry on.
The board’s responsibility was to the KWSO as a corporate entity, which was set in motion in 1945. Behind that legal construction, there’s something truly wondrous: the story of an association, formed and sustained deliberately and voluntarily by generation after generation of engaged citizens, for purposes that go beyond what any single human being can do.
In this case, we’re talking about philharmonic and orchestral pursuits: in other words, making music. Making music is seen as a lofty endeavour, but it is also a quintessentially human one. It is elevated in character and spirit, but also grounded in physical reality: actual places and spaces, musical instruments, bodies, minds.
Over the last three months the Musicians of the KW Symphony have sustained a valiant effort to find a way to be able to continue their work. Because there are so many factors beyond their control, they don’t don’t know exactly where they’re headed. The impulse, however, was to act, swiftly and boldly. Defying the odds, and ignoring decisions that were meant to be final from the corporation that employed them, the players chose to keep on playing. In doing so, they have opened opportunities for members of the public to show their support by coming to listen and giving what they can, in cash or in kind. These actions have set the tone for what promises to be a stirring next chapter in the story.
Last month I joined a new group called the Citizens Supporting the KW Symphony. I would have preferred a title that is more inspiring and aspirational. But I like the word “citizen,” which is meaningful and appropriate in many ways, starting with the way it underscores that this is a public interest group, rather than a special interest.
At some point, supporters will need to explain, not only how we’re going to sustain an organization of this size, scope and quality, but also what the orchestra means in a civic context, and why its existence is a matter of public concern. Meanwhile, we can start by agreeing, as a community, that an entity so large, so complex, and so deeply rooted in our history is not something we just give up on, and toss onto the scrap heap when we encounter an obstacle along the way, in this case, an unprecedented global pandemic.
The Citizens made their first public appearance addressing Waterloo Regional Council meeting as the Strategic Planning and Budget Public Input Committee. The immediate concern was keeping support for the largest and most ambitious cultural project in our history in the 2024 operating budget. Regional Council had an opportunity to make a symbolic gesture that would have helped keep the door open to all possibilities, a kind of contingency fund in case the musicians, the citizens and others who care found a way to move forward. They chose not to make such a gesture. This is a setback for the cause, but by no means the end of the story. There will be other opportunities for the powers that be to support the cause.
No government in Canada, whether in a city, regional, provincial or federal setting, has ever excelled in exercising leadership in the arts, culture and heritage field. According to KWSO Director Emeritus Raffi Armenian, as quoted in The Record back in September, things went off the rails when “bean counters and politicians” were put in charge of cultural assets like the symphony and the concert hall. That may not be entirely off the mark. Nevertheless, we’re going to need some heroic bean counting to get to where we need to go, just as we’ll need some dedicated civil servants giving their all. Prudent, provident decision-making from those who are elected to represent us in democratic bodies like the Regional Council is another absolute necessity.
But we’re also going to need some of what Raffi Armenian was so gifted with: imagination, vision, drive. I don’t think that it will be enough to just cover the shortfall, and put things back on track like we did last time we Saved Our Symphony. Instead of thinking of this as a rescue or restoration project, we’d be wise to take the current crisis as an opportunity to apply some imagination, some courage, some of that smart city innovation Waterloo likes to brag about, and set out to show the world who we really are and what we are capable of. Together, we can turn this crisis into a chance for our community to shine. And right now, I can’t think of a better way to do that than setting down to work defining and building the civic orchestra of the 21st century.
This needn’t mean a scaled-down orchestra, or an amalgamated “Southern Ontario Symphony” type of operation. That would be thinking within the confines of a mindset that has prevailed since the 1970s and ‘80s. We’d be choosing to follow the pattern that has brought us a daily newspaper managed from Hamilton without so much as a functioning newsroom, a set of websites in the place of weekly news publications that have served our communities for generations, and standardized broadcasting operations with minimal staff run like fast food franchises.
It is almost 2024. After more than half a century of cramped thinking, it is high time to break out of the debilitating habit of trying to achieve progress through austerity. It may be possible, at times, to do more with less, particularly with material and financial resources, but that doesn’t apply to human aspects of a genuine prosperity such as talent, skill, vision, will or drive. What matters is how such assets are applied, and to what ends.
The orchestra of tomorrow will be grounded in the community it serves and represents. A primary purpose will be to ensure professional music workers can earn a living. Done right, it can serve as a model for other artistic work in an actual, and therefore local, civic setting.