The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has met -- and exceeded -- the $7 million goal for its Orchestrating the Future fundraising campaign.
The three-year effort, which ended Thursday, raised $7.1 million. Members of the Arkansas Youth Orchestras made the announcement Monday night from the stage of the Riverfront Amphitheatre in the wake of a "flash mob" drum line moving through the crowd at Pops on the River.
The announcement preceded the orchestra's annual Independence Day performance of patriotic music. Jarod Matheney won the Oh Say! Can You Sing? award.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette put on the 33rd daylong festival, concluding with a fireworks display, in downtown Little Rock's Riverfront Park.
Some of the money the orchestra has raised has been helping cover its budget during the two years it will have been out of its home, Robinson Center Music Hall, while the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau has been renovating it. The orchestra's Nov. 19-20 Masterworks concerts will mark the debut of the rebuilt hall.
ASO Executive Director Christina Littlejohn said the orchestra had planned for the estimated loss of "about $400,000, 25 percent of our sales revenue, while we were out of the hall." That's due to the differential between the roughly 2,500 available tickets for each performance at Robinson and, over the past two seasons, Masterworks concerts in the 1,200-seat Maumelle Performing Arts Center and pops concerts in the 1,700-seat Connor Performing Arts Center at Pulaski Academy.
The bulk of the money raised through the campaign is going toward shoring up the orchestra's endowment and to support the orchestra's music and educational programs. That includes a gift from the Roy and Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust to help fund the fledgling Sturgis Music Academy, which among other things will focus on training young string players.
"We wanted the kids to talk about it, since it's about the future," Littlejohn said of Monday night's announcement.
The lead gift, the amount of which Littlejohn would not reveal, came from the Stella Boyle Smith Trust, named for the philanthropist who founded the orchestra in 1966 -- its first concert was in her living room -- and longtime patron for whom the orchestra's Masterworks series is named.
"They helped to make sure we finished it off and had a successful ending," Littlejohn said.
"Parts of the grant were for multiyear commitments to the annual fund, to make sure we're sustainable. They've also given a creative capital gift to help us with new initiatives," which the orchestra will announce subsequently.
"Hitting that goal [also] represents hundreds of members of the community," Littlejohn said. "A lot of that total represents gifts of 25, $50 and $10, so our patrons and subscribers that made it possible to make our goal."
ASO board Chairman Dr. Richard Wheeler, one of six campaign co-chairmen, noted that the orchestra has maintained its operating budget in the black for six years, and as the most recent fiscal year ended, also on June 30, the board and administration fully anticipate that it would be fully in the black for a seventh.
"That's coming from a position of a symphony that was really in trouble, seven, eight years ago," he said. "This is all a concerted effort by the board of directors that decided it was going to change the trajectory of the [organization].
"And then in an attempt to shore up the future, not only did we decide that it was important to make our annual fund every year, but to begin shoring up our endowment and the foundation."
That involved focusing largely on "legacy gifts" -- people putting the orchestra in their wills.
"It all comes down to the board deciding to save the symphony and ensure it's going into the future," Wheeler said.
"It's amazing the support that the community has given us to support a professional orchestra in an area our size."
Metro on 07/05/2016