As the Cleveland Orchestra resumes its residency in Miami this month, it will, for the second time in three years, take a stage upon which Florida-based musicians once expected to be playing.
The orchestra will perform with the Miami City Ballet Jan. 29 — a collaboration that comes after the ballet dismissed 45 musicians in December because of the struggling economy.
“What the ballet and eventually most arts organizations are experiencing, or are going to experience, is a result of the economy,” explains Daniel Lewis, a top Cleveland Orchestra donor and chairman of its Miami initiative. “It has no relationship to this one-time event.”
Two years ago this month, the Cleveland Orchestra began a residency in Miami at a brand new concert hall that the Florida Philharmonic once expected to call home, now known as the Adrienne Arscht Center for the Performing Arts (above). Lewis was chairman of the Florida Philharmonic at the time it declared bankruptcy in 2003. A year later, he pitched the Cleveland Orchestra’s board on growing a Florida donor base by way of an annual Miami residency. The 10-year deal was announced May 9, 2005.
The Miami City Ballet received a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation last October to explore a partnership with the Cleveland Orchestra. The orchestra’s members occasionally collaborated with the Cleveland Ballet before it left town in 2000, following a major branching out to San Jose, Calif.
Orchestra officials have said that its residencies in Miami and Vienna, Austria, are meant only to ensure the financial health of one of the world’s finest orchestras. Lewis says he does “sincerely hope” the demand for classic music in Miami will lead to an expansion of that residency.
“Everything the Cleveland Orchestra is doing in Miami is attempting to build demand for classical music, and there is evidence of such success,” he says.
The orchestra will perform with the Miami City Ballet Jan. 29 — a collaboration that comes after the ballet dismissed 45 musicians in December because of the struggling economy.
“What the ballet and eventually most arts organizations are experiencing, or are going to experience, is a result of the economy,” explains Daniel Lewis, a top Cleveland Orchestra donor and chairman of its Miami initiative. “It has no relationship to this one-time event.”
Two years ago this month, the Cleveland Orchestra began a residency in Miami at a brand new concert hall that the Florida Philharmonic once expected to call home, now known as the Adrienne Arscht Center for the Performing Arts (above). Lewis was chairman of the Florida Philharmonic at the time it declared bankruptcy in 2003. A year later, he pitched the Cleveland Orchestra’s board on growing a Florida donor base by way of an annual Miami residency. The 10-year deal was announced May 9, 2005.
The Miami City Ballet received a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation last October to explore a partnership with the Cleveland Orchestra. The orchestra’s members occasionally collaborated with the Cleveland Ballet before it left town in 2000, following a major branching out to San Jose, Calif.
Orchestra officials have said that its residencies in Miami and Vienna, Austria, are meant only to ensure the financial health of one of the world’s finest orchestras. Lewis says he does “sincerely hope” the demand for classic music in Miami will lead to an expansion of that residency.
“Everything the Cleveland Orchestra is doing in Miami is attempting to build demand for classical music, and there is evidence of such success,” he says.
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