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The New York Observer

New City Policy Threatens Bronx Symphony

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December 6, 2007 | 11:17 a.m.

Despite dwindling audiences in a borough "more noted for its rap and reggaetón than its Rossini and Rimsky-Korsakov," the 60-year old Bronx Symphony Orchestra's resolve still going strong, according to The New York Times. But a new New York City policy pits new and old small arts organizations against each other in a fierce competition for public money. Can they survive?

Timothy Williams reports:

For the musicians of the Bronx Symphony, the question is how long an itinerant orchestra that performs for nothing and rehearses in a cramped high school music room with lousy acoustics can get by in an age of competition — one in which even small arts groups have hired professionals to raise money and court corporate sponsorships.

And so the city’s effort to strengthen its cultural offerings might end up as an elegy for a Bronx tradition.

 

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