The Arts in a Time of Recession

Posted at 5:00 AM on February 7, 2009 by Gillian Martin (2 Comments)

Over the past few months on this blog, I've been avoiding the slew of depressing stories about opera and dance companies and orchestras cancelling productions, laying off musicians, suspending operations, etc., etc. But if you want all the bad news at once, here it is in a nutshell:

Bob Lynch, [Americans for the Arts's] president and CEO, says about 10,000 arts organizations nationwide -- about 10 percent of the total -- have shut down or stand on the verge of collapse.

"It's the worst I've seen it," Lynch says. "They're desperate. In every state, we're seeing some organizations going under."

Read the whole article here.

And then there's the debate about whether jobs in the arts are real jobs or not. Read about that here.

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Comments (2)

Gillian,

Perfect choice. I was sitting here doing online banking stuff and - I heard the opening notes of "On the Beautiful Blue Danube". Perfect choice, perfect time. Thanks!

Posted by Mark W. Tomlinson | February 8, 2009 7:58 AM

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Gillian,

Did the recession cause something to happen to Harmonia? It wasn't on the radio on Sunday night.

What happened?

Thanks,
Alex

Posted by Alex Dashe | February 8, 2009 8:40 PM

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