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Most big city symphony orchestras are still headed by European-born conductors (notable exception: Leonard Bernstein, who is taking over the New York Philharmonic), but most of the smaller orchestras are now led by U.S.-born conductors. The orchestras are no longer the playthings of individual philanthropists; even in dollar-dizzy Dallas, the symphony campaigns to get a larger slice of its support from $5 contributors. Orchestras try hard to come closer to the public. Most of them, notably including Washington's National Symphony, give youth concerts; the New Orleans Symphony plays on Mississippi River boat rides, and the San Antonio orchestra often performs in a brewery.
A large part of many U.S. orchestras' support now comes from industry. Many businessmen count the quality of local symphony orchestras as a big factor in choosing new industrial sites, and cities take a real booster's pride in their orchestras. New symphonies have sprung up in areas where live symphonic music has never been available before, as well as in or near cities where big orchestras already exist but where people want more music of their own.
¶The Atlanta Symphony, organized by Brooklyn-born Conductor Henry Sopkin, is the only major orchestra within 500 miles, and it shares the personnel problems of many small city orchestras. "We're like a Triple A baseball team," says Conductor Sopkin. "We lose some players to the big leagues in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, but we can recruit from groups in Chattanooga, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham." Few of Sopkin's 78 instrumentalists can afford to live as full-time performers; some conduct church choirs, others work as shipping clerks, stenographers, factory hands. Nonetheless, the orchestra has an ambitious season schedule of 60 concerts (mostly standard repertory and pop), including a date at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. ¶Los Angeles alone has some 50 suburban orchestras within commuting distance of the city, and many of them have been more ambitious in their programing than the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The 85-member Burbank Symphony has performed more new works (Lukas Foss, Haakon Bergh, Giuseppe Marino. Leo Shuken) in the last dozen years than the Philharmonic has in all its 38-year history.
61 7—Count 'Em—61 7. What has happened in the field of symphonic music has happened to opera: the oldtime major centers no longer perform the bulk of it, nor do they always lead the way in the performance of new and neglected works.
Last year (according to Opera News) 703 opera groups were onstage in 48 states, and home-grown opera was performed as frequently as imports. Today there is an active enough opera circuit to permit guest stars from the Metropolitan Opera to swing around the country in almost continual employment from Miami to Seattle.