Letter from our President
From the President
August 1, 2010
Dear Friends,
I hope you are as excited as I am about our new website, and please write us if you have comments about it. The website is very easy to navigate, and the best part is that you can securely order tickets. We have tried very hard to make ticket ordering easy for you since, in all honesty, we need to sell more tickets.
We are so grateful to all of you for your monetary support of our organization, and contributions are holding up, but our grave concern, since contributions and ticket sales are our only two sources of income, is that ticket sales are down drastically. We know it’s a national trend for people to be unwilling to commit to buying tickets for an entire season, but it makes for a very difficult situation for the sponsoring organization in trying to balance a budget.
A symphony orchestra is a tremendous asset for a community. Some people may think it’s too much trouble to go to a concert and that it’s just as easy and cheaper to stay home and put on a CD. What they don’t realize is that in the actual making of music, which in a live performance is different every single time, there’s a tremendous generation of energy, both from the musicians and the audience, which is totally lacking in a home environment when listening to a mechanical reproduction, however good, of a musical work. This energy is transformational and is why, if you’ve gone to a fantastic concert, you feel so transformed and refreshed at the end. Please come to our concerts and see for yourself!!!
This column will be updated frequently, and please check back for the latest information we want to pass on to you, our valued patrons.
All best wishes
Joan
New web site!
The new web site was developed to give our public better access to the Brevard Philharmonic (“B P”) information and features they desire. It will continue to be improved over the next year. We would love to hear what you think about it: Is it easy to use? Does it have what you were looking for? What is missing? Visit our web site at brevardphilharmonic.org.
Pre-Concert Events
The Brevard Philharmonic began offering free pre-concert events during the 2009-2010 season. We invite you to these free activities, usually in Scott Commons area of the Porter Center. Events start at 2:00 PM, and are completed by 2:30 PM.
September 26, 2010 Concert
The first concert of the new season for the Brevard Philharmonic, “Experience the Romance”, is on Sunday, September 26, 2010, at 3:00 PM in the Porter Center at Brevard College. Ms. Rachel Barton Pine will play Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy for Violin, Op 46 with the B P. The B P will also perform: Beethoven’s Overture to Fidelio, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 in D Major, Op. 107, “Reformation”.
2010-2011 Season
The B P season program is titled Music Brings Beauty to Life. The five concerts in the 2010-2011 season will all be performed in the Porter Center on Sundays at 3:00 PM:
September 26, 2010 Experience the Romance, with Rachel Barton Pine, violin
November 14, 2010 Schumann’s 200th Birthday, with Franklin Keel, cello
February 20, 2011 From Mozart to Gershwin, with Lori Hicks, soprano
March 27, 2011 Schubert Fest, with the Brevard High School Chorus
May 1, 2011 Liszt’s 200th Birthday, with Judit Gabos, piano
You can order tickets via our web site (brevardphilharmonic.org), sending an e-mail message via secure link to us; we will get back to you. You can download a form from our web site to mail in to our office (at P. O. Box 1547, Brevard, NC, 28712), or call the office at (828) 884-4221. We accept mailed checks, and VISA, Mastercard, and Discover credit cards. Since we are a volunteer organization, our office is only staffed part-time, but if you will please leave a message, someone will call you back. Tickets are also available at each concert, starting at 1:30 PM in the Porter Center lobby, using cash, check or credit card.
The office (at 351 South Caldwell Street, Brevard) will be open for ticket activities from 10AM to 1PM on the following dates:
Sept. 15,17 22,24, 2010
Nov. 3, 5, 10, 12 , 2010
Feb. 9, 11, 16, 18, 2011
Mar. 16, 18, 23, 25, 2011
Apr. 20, 22, 27, 29, 2011
Season Tickets
We encourage you to purchase season tickets, at a 20% discount! Individual tickets are $25 per concert, but the five-concert season ticket is only $100. You save $25. We do this to encourage our audience to attend all our concerts.
We also have four-pack and three-pack packages that offer savings over the per-ticket price, for those of you who are not here for the whole season. Talk to the office staff for details.
Support the B P
Each concert costs the B P about $14,000! Wow! Tickets only cover about 40% of that cost; so we, like all orchestras, depend heavily on donations to help us cover our budget. Because we use volunteers so heavily, we keep our costs down – but we really need your help! You can call us, or use the ticket order form by mail, or use the e-mail order form.
Music in the Schools
Music in the Schools is an important outreach program of Brevard Philharmonic. The goal is to bring an educational experience, introducing all the instruments of an orchestra, played by professional musicians to every elementary school student.
Youth String Program
The Youth String Program Committee worked very hard this past year to support the program in such areas as record keeping, instrument inventory, and general oversight of the program. For the 2009-2010 school year only a handful of students were enrolled in beginning and intermediate classes, with most of the students enrolled in the ensemble. Since there are opportunities for students in both Transylvania and Henderson counties to take private string instruction, the decision was made after much deliberation and input from the Youth String Program Director to focus all our energies on a Preparatory Ensemble Program (PEP), available to students in Transylvania and Henderson counties, where students could begin training in an ensemble setting.
Letter from our Treasurer
From the Treasurer
August 1, 2010
Our 2009-10 Fiscal Year ended on a high note. As of June 30, 2010 we had a modest surplus. Donations were up 10% over budget and expenses were down 10% compared to budget.
For this Fiscal Year (7/1/10 - 6/30/11) we are on target to make our Donations budget, but meeting our bottom line will be quite challenging: Season ticket sales are behind budget compared to this time last year. Many of our existing patrons have moved or are unable to re-purchase.
Many of our volunteer (non-paid) musicians have either retired or moved out of the area. This means that in most cases we have had to replace them with paid musicians. This year we expect an 11% increase in costs over last year due to hiring of replacement musicians. Musicians’ stipends account for 46% of our expense budget. Other expense lines are remaining relatively constant.
Thanks to all of you for the support you are giving to Brevard Philharmonic. We appreciate donations of any size - they are tax deductible. Anyone interested in donating may send a check, made out to Brevard Philharmonic, to our office at PO Box 1547 in Brevard. Thanks!
Renee Bresler
