Shreveport Symphony Orchestra Cuts

[Eric B]

The board of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra has made significant cuts in recent years, and now they are about to reduce pay and benefits drastically. I perform with the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra which began just two years ago. Our group is comprised of mostly musicians from the Shreveport Symphony (nearly all of our strings, horns and about half of our woodwinds). I hope Shreveport comes to a workable solution for the sake of those musicians and because this will certainly affect the TSO which is one of the great joys of my life. Here's the link to the website created by the SSO musicians to inform the public about the situation and action steps they can take.

www.shreveportmusicians.org

To be "fair and balanced", here is the view of the symphony board:

www.shreveportsymphony.com

[tbn.al]

It appears the Shreveport neither wants nor will support a full time prefessional symphony orchestra. What they will get is a part time ensemble much like the three we have on the North side of Atlanta. These are good groups but I would rather pay $50 a seat to hear the ASO than $25 to hear the Cobb Symphony. I do have non musician freinds that can't tell the difference and wonder why I choose to drive all the way down town. By the way, I am a member of an all volunteer orchestra, amd although we are very good, we're no ASO. There will be a select few NW Lousianians who will apreciate the music enough to drive to Dallas. The rest won't know the difference. So sad.