The Philharmonic, Under New Management, Raises $50 Million — Fast

Photo

In a show of donor confidence in its new leadership, the deficit-challenged New York Philharmonic announced Tuesday that it had raised $50 million to help it balance its budgets in the coming seasons as it rolls out its next music director, Jaap van Zweden.

The rapidly raised $50 million was a coup for Deborah Borda, who has only been the orchestra’s president and chief executive officer for a few months but is already putting her stamp on the organization. Ms. Borda has pushed the Philharmonic to rethink the costly and disruptive plans to rebuild its Lincoln Center home, hired a new executive team, and turned her attention to the shaky finances of the orchestra, which has run deficits for most of the current century.

“This really strengthens us,” Ms. Borda said of the recent gifts, which she said had come from longtime supporters of the Philharmonic, whom she did not identify. “It gives us a fantastic launchpad.”

Ms. Borda was known as a prodigious fund-raiser during her 17 years at the helm of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she quintupled that orchestra’s endowment. The $50 million she has raised in New York will help the orchestra stay solvent as it pays for the extra programming, marketing and other costs associated with introducing its next music director, Mr. van Zweden, to New York when he takes over next season.

Of course, $50 million raised for operating expenses is money that could have gone to the long-planned, long-delayed renovation of the Philharmonic’s home, David Geffen Hall. In October Ms. Borda and Debora L. Spar, the new president of Lincoln Center, put the brakes on an ambitious renovation plan that would have cost at least $500 million — and which threatened to keep the Philharmonic out of its home for more than two seasons, which could cost it subscribers at a vulnerable time. They said that they would work to come up with less disruptive, less costly plans.

Asked if the new gifts would delay fund-raising for the hall, Ms. Borda said that she thought they would strengthen the Philharmonic’s position by getting its own house in order first. “It positions us to move ahead on the rest of the capital campaign,” she said.

Ms. Borda’s new executive team includes Adam Crane, previously of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, whom she named to a new position: vice president for external affairs, where he will oversee a broad portfolio including community collaborations and education. The Philharmonic’s new vice president for development will be Susan Madden, who worked at the Museum of the City of New York for nearly a decade and helped it complete a $100 million capital campaign. They will join Isaac Thompson, who started over the summer as the orchestra’s vice president for artistic planning and who previously worked at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.