My post but not my writing. A friend with close ties to the Symphony was sharing with me his views about the Symphony’s current situation & he made so much sense that I asked him to write it all down for me & let me post it on this blog. The pictures were added by me for aesthetics. Please feel free to discuss in the comments, but be warned that I will nazi any abuse or abject stupidity. There’s enough of that out there already.
First off, I’d like to apologize. This is going to be a fairly long post. I have a lot of things to say about the recent demise of the Honolulu Symphony. Much of this is background information before actually getting into the question of what should we do in Honolulu.
After 110 years, the Honolulu Symphony has finally come to an end. For those of you who did not know of the problem, the Honolulu Symphony filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection about a year ago due to mounting debt. The other day, the federal courts approved a request from the Honolulu Symphony to transition from a Ch. 11 to Ch 7 liquidation.
I’ve read numerous articles over the past two or three years about the financial health and viability ofthe Honolulu Symphony, and taken the time to go through comments from time to time. Everyone seems to have an opinion and it seems that seems that a lot of people think the problem has clear cut and simple answers. Like everything else in life, there are many other factors at play that make the situation much more complicated. It’s not just as simple as saying management was bad, the business model was outdated, or something like, “if it can’t support itself then we don’t need it.” I’m not saying that I have the answers, but I’d like people to think a little more before making a snap decision or comments.
