January 2020

Submission to the Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs

Posted on January 27, 2020

On behalf of Ontario’s sixty-nine orchestras, the audiences they serve, the musicians they engage, and the enterprises they work with, Orchestras Canada is pleased to participate in the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs’ pre-budget consultations. We appreciate this opportunity and look forward to a continued and constructive dialogue with legislators in the coming months.

Orchestras are part of Ontario’s not for profit arts sector and a key element of the province’s creative economy. Ontario’s creative sector sustains over 286,000 jobs and contributes $25 billion to the province’s GDP. According to recent Statistics Canada data, the sector is over three times larger than either agriculture or mining (respectively contributing $7.4 and $6.9 billion to the province’s GDP).

Orchestras contribute to jobs and the economy in towns and cities across the province, a key priority for the Government of Ontario. It’s a good news story: every dollar invested by the Ontario Arts Council in operating grants to not-for-profit arts organizations (such as orchestras) is complemented by an average of $15.58 in private sector revenue (ticket sales, fees, donations, and sponsorship); furthermore, every dollar invested by the Ontario Arts Council in operating grants enables $21.60 in spending, including $12.26 on fees and salaries to Ontarians. The economic multiplier effect associated with the not-for-profit arts in Ontario has been conservatively estimated as 1:1.23.

Orchestras in Ontario

The Province of Ontario has had a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Ontario’s orchestras, demonstrated by thoughtful investment through the Ontario Arts Council (OAC). This investment (though proportionally small at 5.2% of Ontario orchestras’ overall revenues in 2018-19) plays an important role in the viability and success of our orchestras: the timing of grant announcements allows groups to plan responsibly, and the thoroughness of the grant review processes ensure that applicant organizations are addressing critical issues and are well-placed to succeed on-stage and in their communities, as well. Public support is seen as a vote of confidence in an organization, helping to leverage private sector investment.

From Thunder Bay to Owen Sound, from Windsor and Timmins to Ottawa, Toronto, and Kitchener- Waterloo, orchestras and the musicians they engage touch the lives of our citizens in meaningful ways that create impact: economically, socially and culturally.

Orchestras support jobs in communities around the province, directly through fees paid to musicians and related personnel, and indirectly, in their relationships with concert venues, media, print media, IT professionals, marketing firms, hospitality, and tourism industries.
The musicians that orchestras engage are the same people that perform in long-term care facilities, churches, and community centres. They offer music lessons, and support education programs in the schools and community. If there’s no orchestra, the musicians disperse, and these many contributions are lost.
Through their public performances, education and community engagement programming, and extracurricular activities by their musicians, orchestras make cities and communities more active and attractive places, leading to happier, more engaged and more productive citizens. Tourism operators call orchestras “destination enhancers”. Additionally, orchestras have developed programs that specifically address important facets of our lives, like health and wellness, healthy aging, better learning outcomes, social integration, and newcomer welcomes.
Orchestras are an acknowledged part of Ontario’s civic infrastructure. If a community is not large enough to support an orchestra, its residents still benefit from orchestras’ activities, through touring performances, teaching programs, or digital dissemination.

The diversity of Ontario’s orchestras (ranging from internationally-renowned ensembles that engage skilled professionals to perform at home in Ontario and on the world stage, volunteer-driven groups performing for neighbours and friends, our vibrant youth orchestras, seniors’ groups, big-city and small- town orchestras alike) is unique in Canada. Each one of these groups is a source of pride to its community.

The power of leveraging Ontario’s investment in orchestras

In 2018-19, grants to smaller-budget orchestras from the Ontario Arts Council ranged between $8000 and $17,000. These relatively modest investments might make the difference between an organization’s ability to mount a community engagement program, or not; might cover a part-time wage to an administrator to coordinate the orchestra’s activities, or not; might allow the orchestra to engage a skilled professional music director, or not. Relatively modest investments have major impact at the community level.

OAC investment in larger-budget orchestras in 2018-19, while greater in dollar amount, still represented on average well under 10% of the funded groups’ annual revenues. These larger orchestras create a significant number of jobs for professional musicians across the province, and reported attendance of over 820,000 people in 2018-19.

Looking forward

Orchestras, like any other business, thrive when they have access to stable, adequate resources to plan with confidence, develop long-term relationships, and make meaningful commitments to workers, whether artists, administrators, or production personnel. In turn, they contribute to communities, our education system and economy.

In 2018-19, the Ontario government reduced the OAC’s funding in-year by $5 million, as part of an overall reduction to government spending. Reduced funding to the OAC means that orchestras – along with the rest of the arts community – are re-shaping their activities to match the resources available, resulting in less arts activity, less ability to invest in long term developmental initiatives, reduced capacity for strategic risk-taking, and less economic spin-off. This affects their contribution–economically, socially and culturally–to the fabric of Ontario.

Building alternative models

Between 1998 and 2008, the Ontario Arts Endowment Fund (launched by a prior Progressive Conservative government and administered by the Ontario Arts Foundation) matched a remarkable $60 million in private sector contributions to arts organizations of all sizes in communities across the province. The combined funds have been invested in perpetuity, and income from these investments provides unrestricted revenue that arts organizations (including orchestras) are using to sustain and develop important programs, including arts education, community engagement, and accessibility-focused programs. While the Ontario program ended in 2008, donors’ enthusiasm for this kind of matching funds program remains high: an equivalent federal program, in place since 2001, has been consistently over-subscribed.

Alternative approaches to financing such as the Ontario Arts Endowment Fund can strengthen the long- term sustainability of arts organizations, including orchestras, in times of fiscal restraint. We would welcome the opportunity to explore this and other approaches to resourcing the arts.

Our recommendations

Earlier this month, OC consulted our Ontario member orchestras on key messages and issues. Here’s what we heard, and here’s what we recommend:

Stable, adequate investment from a trusted arms-length agency like the Ontario Arts Council is vital for orchestras. Without it, their capacity to serve their communities effectively is diminished, as is their ability to leverage funding at the federal level and from the private sector.

Recommendation: We ask the Government of Ontario to increase its investment in the arts through the Ontario Arts Council by $5 million in fiscal 2020-21, to work with the OAC to measure the impact of this investment, and to sustain and increase the investment over time.

There is an integral connection between the quality of arts education (including music) in the province’s publicly-funded schools and the vitality of local musical culture. Orchestra leaders acknowledge that strong school music programs (with relevant and visionary curricula, qualified teachers, and collaboration between local arts organizations and school arts programs) are necessary for strong community-based music organizations, today and in the future. Orchestras are eager to play their part in introducing students to the power of live performance, thereby strengthening school programs, reducing barriers to arts access and participation, and expanding the work that they are already doing in their communities.

Recommendation: We ask the Government of Ontario, through the Ministries of Heritage, Sport, Tourism, and Culture Industries and Education in collaboration with the Ontario Arts Council to pilot and evaluate a program (over a three-year period, in different jurisdictions across the province) to fully subsidize student attendance at live performances by Ontario professional arts groups. Modeled on a highly successful program in the province of Quebec, a relatively modest investment – to be determined between Ministries – could yield significant results.

Orchestras would welcome measures to leverage existing private sector investment and help diversify revenues. One such model was successfully introduced in Ontario in the late 1990s as the Ontario Arts Endowment Program, matching private sector contributions to arts organizations’ endowment funds dollar for dollar up to a capped amount. According to the Ontario Arts Foundation (administrator of the program), during the program’s existence, arts organizations across Ontario attracted $60 million in matching funds. And over the last 20 years, the investment has yielded more than $87 million in income to participating Ontario arts organizations.

Recommendation: We ask the Government of Ontario to explore with the Ontario Arts Foundation the feasibility of revising, re-investing in, and re-launching the Ontario Arts Endowment Program.

Orchestras are keen to expand their use of digital tools to expand their reach and serve their communities more effectively. Yet, lacking capacity for the required investments in new technology and expertise, they often lag behind. Relatively small investments in digital transformation (modeled on the Digital Main Street partnership between the Ontario government and the Ontario BIA Association) will make a significant difference in the not-for-profit arts sector, and complement the targeted investment the province has already made in revitalizing the digital footprint of small businesses.

Recommendation: We ask the Government of Ontario to explore the feasibility of piloting a Digital Main Street-style program for not-for-profit arts and culture organizations.

Investment in orchestras and the arts is an investment in the people of Ontario that will drive economic growth and cultural development. Arts investment provides a return in investment that can be measured by economic growth, social cohesion and well-being, and cultural engagement – all elements important to making Ontario a fair and welcoming province.

Thank you for considering Orchestras Canada’s recommendations for Budget 2020. We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to participate in this process.

Katherine Carleton, C.M.
Executive Director
Orchestras Canada/Orchestres Canada

Orchestras Canada – Ontario Member Orchestras 2019-20

Ardeleana Chamber Music Society/Whispering River Orchestra (Parry Sound, ON), Brantford Symphony Orchestra, Burlington Symphony Orchestra, Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra (Scarborough), Counterpoint Community Orchestra (Toronto), Deep River Symphony Orchestra, Dundas Valley Orchestra (Dundas), Durham Chamber Orchestra (Port Perry), Durham Youth Orchestra (Oshawa), Esprit Orchestra (Toronto), Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra, Georgian Bay Symphony (Owen Sound), Guelph Symphony Orchestra, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Huronia Symphony Orchestra (Barrie), International Symphony Orchestra (Sarnia), Italian Canadian Symphony Orchestra (Toronto), Kanata Symphony Orchestra, Kawartha Youth Orchestra (Peterborough), Kindred Spirits Orchestra (Markham), Kingston Symphony, Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Community Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Youth Orchestra, London Community Orchestra, London Symphonia, Milton Philharmonic Orchestra, Mississauga Symphony Orchestra, Music4Life Ensemble (Ajax), National Arts Centre Orchestra / Orchestre du Centre national des Arts (Ottawa), National Youth Orchestra of Canada (Toronto), Niagara Symphony Orchestra (St. Catharines), North Bay Symphony Orchestra, Northumberland Orchestra & Choir (Cobourg), North York Concert Orchestra, Oakville Chamber Orchestra, Oakville Symphony, Oakville Symphony Youth Orchestra, Ontario Philharmonic (Oshawa), Orchestra Breva (Harrow), Orchestra Kingston, Orchestra Toronto, Ottawa Pops Orchestra, Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, Ottawa Youth Orchestra Academy, Parkdale United Church Orchestra (Ottawa), Pembroke Symphony Orchestra, Peterborough Symphony Orchestra, Quinte Symphony (Belleville), Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra, Rose Orchestra (Brampton), Sault Symphony Orchestra, Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Toronto, Stratford Symphony Orchestra, Strings Attached Orchestra (Toronto), Sudbury Symphony Orchestra, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Toronto), Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra (Ottawa), Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Thunder Bay Symphony Youth Orchestra, Timmins Symphony Orchestra, Timmins Youth Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, York Chamber Ensemble.

Ontario Associate Organizations, 2019-20:

Ars Musica (Toronto), Brott Music Festival/National Academy Orchestra (Hamilton), Canadian Federation of Musicians (Toronto), Dean Artists Management (Toronto), Domoney Artists Management (Toronto), Music Toronto, National Ballet Orchestra (Toronto), Sultans of String (Burlington), University of Toronto Faculty of Music

Adapting Concerts for a Broader Audience

Posted on January 27, 2020January 23, 2020

Photo Credit: J.J. Gill

As a way of opening up their concert halls to a greater number of people in their communities, several Canadian orchestras have produced Relaxed Performances. Last year, we shared resources from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Let’s Dance concert. On November 1st, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO) produced their first relaxed performance, as part of a matinee concert series. This ‘blended’ concert was designed to be performed for two audiences at the same time: the WSO’s regular matinee audience, and to new concertgoers seeking a less exigent, more relaxed concert experience.

What is a relaxed performance?

A relaxed performance is designed specifically for audiences who would benefit from a more relaxed sensory experience at a concert. They might include parents with babies and toddlers, people on the autism spectrum, or people with sensory communication disorders or learning disabilities.

Usually these concerts are added as a special event to an orchestra’s activities, but the WSO decided instead to adapt an already-scheduled concert. The education team started working on this in Spring 2019, and took advantage of partnerships they already had in the community. These partnerships proved valuable in providing an experience that was accessible to as many people as possible. Most significantly, the concert environment was supported by volunteers experienced with sensory-friendly events and environments, students and faculty from the music therapy program at Canadian Mennonite University, and faculty from Prelude Music, a music studio specializing in musical instruction for neuro-diverse individuals and those with sensory challenges.

Getting Ready

Preparing for this concert was more complex than usual. The team at the WSO created two new documents to help prepare people attending: a pre-visit guide, and a concert experience guide. These documents were created by and in consultation with individuals who were close to the WSO, and have worked with or been a caregiver for someone on the spectrum. Through the pre-visit guide, potential audience members are walked through what to expect from transportation to the venue until arrival at one’s seat. The concert experience guide prepares people for what to expect during the concert itself, and lists some of the amenities available to them, including fidget objects, colouring activities and reserved spaces for a more or less intense experience (at the very front or back of the hall).

The WSO offered free tickets to select community groups through their Share the Music program, but the majority of tickets were purchased as for a usual matinee performance.

Regular matinee subscribers received an email and a physical mailing, to inform them that this concert would be different to their usual matinee experience. WSO staff also briefed the guest conductor and musicians before the first rehearsal for the relaxed concert.

According to Education & Community Engagement Manager, Brent Johnson, anticipation was high leading up to the concert. How would regular patrons react? Would people find the relaxed element of the concert welcoming? Was this concert too different from the usual experience? Not different enough?

Concert Day

“As soon as the doors opened, there was a different feeling in the air,” Johnson said. For the approximately 600 audience members, there was a real excitement that this concert was bringing new people to the symphony who may have experienced barriers in accessing this music before.

Volunteers were critical to the success of the event. Faculty and students from Canadian Mennonite University and volunteers with appropriate experience from the Royal Manitoba Theatre were on the ground to help people find what they needed. There was no self-identification by people who were there specifically for the relaxed elements of the concert. With many spare spaces in the hall, and reserved seating right at the front and back, audience members were encouraged to move around as required, and to respond to the music as they would like (clapping, moving or vocalizing for example). A separate quiet room was provided upstairs, with fidget objects, activity books and weighted blankets for those who chose to use them. The house lights were also brought up to half throughout the performance.

Next Steps

The process of producing this concert allowed the WSO team to investigate what is and isn’t working for patrons in their venue. They identified a handful of things that might be creating barriers for anyone attending concerts. For instance, the WSO is planning to expand the FAQ and accessibility information on their website and in pre- to ensure that all patrons feel welcome, ready and excited to be at the symphony!

Given the WSO’s intense schedule, the WSO team plans to continue to refine the ‘adapted’ concert model. The pilot version of this model was highly successful, and with careful concert selection, the WSO will offer three relaxed concerts in 2020-21. To access the resources from November’s concert, follow the links below.

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra presents its next relaxed concert at a February 21st matinee: Hétu & Franck. Learn more about their relaxed concert series on their website.

Chaakapesh: collaborations, language and voice

Posted on January 13, 2020January 13, 2020

Photo Credit: Jean-Marc Abella

In September 2018, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) and Music Director Kent Nagano toured to Indigenous communities across Northern Quebec. The featured work on this tour was a new chamber opera entitled Chaakapesh, the Trickster’s Quest.

The opera tells the story of Chaakapesh, a trickster who sets out to stop the massacre of his people by white settlers through teaching these settlers to laugh. The OSM engaged renowned Cree writer Tomson Highway as librettist, and Matthew Ricketts, a young Canadian living in New York, as composer. The work features narrators in one of five languages (Cree, Innu, Inuktitut, French or English, depending on the place of performance), and two singers to tell this story of the founder of the Innu people. Funded in part by a New Chapter grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, the collaboration began with discussions in 2016 and culminated two years later with the tour. 45 OSM musicians participated in this tour, marking the first time in ten years that the orchestra has visited Nunavik, and the first time ever in Cree and Innu territory.

Film-makers Roger Frappier and Justin Kingsley created a documentary about the multiplicity of collaborations brought about from this project, also titled Chaakapesh. The documentary, which premiered in Montreal in December 2019, includes extended sequences of performances, rehearsals, and interviews with people involved in the project, including the creative team, Maestro Nagano, the narrators and singers who performed the work, and OSM staff and musicians.

Indigenous Voices and Indigenous Performers

“There’s a difference between sharing and stealing”

Photo Credit: Jean-Marc Abella

Chaakapesh gives significant space to Indigenous voices and performers. With the opera translated into five different languages, different narrators are needed for each performance. In the documentary, each of the Indigenous narrators gets extended interview time to delve deep into their experiences as artists and people, inside and outside of this specific collaboration.

We also see Indigenous community members throughout the creation and rehearsal process, involved in conversations and making creative decisions. The collaborative aspect of this project continues into the tour itself, where we see a range of Indigenous performers on stage, including an advanced local cello student playing a Bach suite, a traditional fiddler and throat singers. Their performances were built into the opera, and were different at each presentation depending on which musicians the OSM had access to in each community. As Cree narrator Ernest Webb says, “there’s a difference between sharing and stealing”. In Chaakapesh, we see the OSM sharing the stage with Indigenous performers and sharing the rehearsal process with Indigenous artists.

Stories and Language

“So that our children can inherit something other than prejudice”

Photo Credit: Jean-Marc Abella

There is a strong story-telling element to many of the interviews in the documentary. Innu narrator Florent Vollant speaks of being taken from his home in Labrador to a residential school when he was only five years old. Inuktitut narrator Akinisie Sivuarapik reminds us that tuberculosis is still present in some Indigenous communities. Though there is a hopefulness to Chaakapesh, the film also reminds us that these stories of trauma are not problems of the past, but issues that are still very present to this day.

Language takes pride of place in both the opera and the documentary. The fact that the opera is presented in no fewer than three Indigenous languages is testament to this. The geography of this project is also significant: in a province where the struggle between French and English can be so strongly felt and politicized, it is easy to forget that there are a number of languages that existed here long before either of Canada’s official languages.

What now?

This project is an important step in furthering collaborative partnerships between arts organizations and Indigenous communities. It was an enormous, successful, very public collaboration, but the real test of this kind work is what sort of ongoing partnerships can be made between these groups. Sustained funding is needed to help orchestras and other arts organizations create meaningful, lasting partnerships that are beneficial to Indigenous communities and enable these communities to celebrate their own art forms, cultural experiences and traditions.

Photo Credit: Antoine Saito

This project was life-changing for the OSM as well. Head of Special Artistic Projects, Marc Wieser, says, “This project was a watershed moment for the OSM in collaboration with Indigenous artists and communities. All genuine relationships begin with trust, and Chaakapesh was a catalyst that has allowed us to build relationships with a growing network of Indigenous artists in Montreal and Quebec. As an organization we learned the value of taking artistic risks and of stepping outside of our comfort zone. We have since collaborated with several of the same artists, among others, and found we were able to go straight to the music, having already established terms of mutual trust. In summer 2019 we produced a concert called Makusham, in which three OSM musicians paired with three Indigenous singer-songwriters and an arranger to collaboratively create a concert where the Indigenous musicians took the artistic lead. The concert was a huge success, and it would have been unimaginable without all the “footwork” of Chaakapesh to back it up. We now feel welcomed and well-perceived by many Indigenous communities, and have the opportunity to build on our experience and continue our collaborations.”

Chaakapesh doesn’t claim to have all the answers for reconciliation between colonizer and colonized, Indigenous and settler communities. As Florent Vollant mentions during one of his documentary interviews, it will take several generations of hard work, sustained partnerships, and thoughtful collaboration to move these conversations forward. This is an important step.

Upcoming screenings, and short clips from the Chaakapesh documentary can be found on the OSM website.

The Opera Chaakapesh will be staged again as part of the OSM’s Classical Spree Festival in August 2020. Tickets on sale from February.