Star Tribune
Minnesota Orchestra pulls its budget into the black
After four years of deficits, the Minnesota Orchestra has posted a $1.1 million surplus on a budget of $42.4 million.
The state’s largest performing arts nonprofit rebounded from the pandemic in fiscal year 2023, which ended in August, with bigger audiences, the return to in-person Young People’s Concerts and more rentals of its home base, Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis.
The annual report released Thursday shows the orchestra’s operating revenue, which includes ticket sales and rental income, reached $9.5 million — a 17% increase over the prior year but still well below pre-pandemic numbers.
“We’re getting back to more regular operations, which feels really good,” said Michelle Miller Burns, president and CEO, by phone. “And we also believe that it will inspire people who are supportive of the organization. It will give our donors confidence to make their philanthropic investments.
“It gives us just a little bit of breathing room operationally, too.”
It was a year of transition, with Thomas Søndergård as music director designate, and of return. The long-running Young People’s Concerts restarted, bringing nearly 30,000 youth to Orchestra Hall. Concerts included the world premiere of “brea(d)th,” a work that the orchestra commissioned in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
Attendance rose again, hitting 82% of capacity during the 2022-23 season, compared with 79% the year before and 87% in 2019, before COVID-19 shuttered performing arts venues, upending their finances. But the orchestra kept playing, via “This Is Minnesota Orchestra” broadcasts online, on the radio and on Twin Cities Public Television.
“Because of how we were able to navigate through the pandemic and stay connected with audiences, we have seen audiences come back in greater numbers than some of our colleague organizations in other communities have seen,” Burns said.
Attendance of 82% “in any situation is a very, very good number,” said Simon Woods, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, a trade organization. “It’s clear that they’re outperforming the benchmark here, in terms of audiences returning.”
Woods has argued that the pandemic spotlighted how orchestras “must come back with a new will to engage with their whole communities,” as he put it in the New York Times.
The Minnesota Orchestra has taken that charge to heart, Woods said by phone this week. “If you go through all the things we need to be thinking about differently, I think the Minnesota Orchestra is doing most of them,” he said. “They’re thinking really deeply about racial equity. They are thinking hard about community. They’re thinking … about historically underrepresented composers.
“It really is a list of all the right work, it seems to me.”
During the pandemic, as ticket sale revenue tanked, orchestras leaned on government and private support, according to a League of American Orchestras report. Across institutions, private support made up 61% of orchestras’ revenue in fiscal year 2021, compared with 46% in 2019. Meanwhile, ticket sale revenue fell from 30% to 7%.
During fiscal year 2023, total contributions — a number that includes individual donations to the annual fund, trust distributions and the Paycheck Protection Program loan forgiveness — reached $32.6 million in fiscal year 2023, up from $28.8 million the year before. PPP forgiveness accounted for $4.5 million of that number. Annual fund gifts from individuals rose to $6.5 million.
The orchestra received gifts from 13,569 donors, down from 14,447 donors the previous year.
In fiscal year 2023, contributed revenue made up 75% of the Minnesota Orchestra’s revenue. Operating revenue comprised 22%.
The first in the orchestra’s series of deficits preceded the pandemic. The nonprofit posted an $8.8 million operating loss in fiscal year 2019, then a $11.7 million deficit the following year, amid the pandemic. In the past two years, the number had been improving: The orchestra reported an operating loss of $656,000 for fiscal year 2022, following a return to weekly concerts.
The nonprofit is planning for a balanced budget for the current fiscal year, which ends in August, Burns said. Orchestra Hall was “overflowing” for Søndergård’s first concerts as music director last fall, she said, and the orchestra had a “really strong” holiday season.
“We’re always striving to have that balanced budget,” Burns said. “And we also realize that there are unknowns — boy, did the pandemic teach us that. So we know that there will be an ebb and flow.
“But over the course of time, we want to make sure that we are operating in a fiscally responsible and sustainable manner.”
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.
Minnesota may get snow Thursday. Here’s how much more the Halloween Blizzard Of 1991 dropped.
Suspect “led us to the evidence” in Montana camper’s brutal killing, initially thought to have been bear attack
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
Minnesota may get snow Thursday. Here’s how much more the Halloween Blizzard Of 1991 dropped.
Suspect “led us to the evidence” in Montana camper’s brutal killing, initially thought to have been bear attack