Contact: Eva Mowry, Public Relations & Marketing
E: evam@charlottesymphony.org
P: 704-714-5114

For Immediate Release                                                                                                 

Gifts Totaling $2.5 Million Launch
Charlotte Symphony’s Capital Campaign

November 4, 2011- The Charlotte Symphony announced today that it has received three major gifts of $500,000 each from the Leon Levine Foundation, Jim and Mary Anne Rogers and an anonymous benefactor.  These contributions form the foundation for the launch of the Symphony’s new capital campaign, intended to improve financial stability for the Symphony and allow it, over time, to create a sustainable funding model. These three gifts, combined with recent additional multi-year pledges, total $2.55 MM to date.

In 2009, the effects of the recession triggered funding reductions from the Arts and Science Council and the corporate sector that totaled $1.7 MM, which placed the Symphony in a critical financial situation.  In response, the Symphony simultaneously reduced its annual expenses by $1 MM and launched a short term, multimillion bridge funding initiative which set the stage for the longer term recapitalization campaign now underway.

The first stage of this new recapitalization campaign is a five-year initiative to add $2 MM each year to the CSO’s existing contributed revenues of nearly $4MM per year.  As the Symphony builds this operating capital, the campaign’s focus will transition to building its investment capital (endowment). This multilayered strategy looks more broadly at the Charlotte Symphony’s overall capital needs, and reflects emerging trends in arts funding strategies nationwide.

“The short term bridge funding and the cost reductions succeeded in their primary goal – they provided the stability, and the time, to launch new, innovative concerts and education programs with our new Music Director, Christopher Warren-Green”, said Jonathan Martin, President & Executive Director of the Charlotte Symphony.  “Moreover, they helped lay the foundation for this longer term campaign.” 

Martin continued: “We have three clear tasks before us.  We must secure the necessary operating and investment capital required to sustain an orchestra of the size Charlotte deserves. We must build a much broader, more resilient funding model. And, through Christopher’s talent and innovations, we must, and will, build the new American Orchestra, right here in Charlotte North Carolina.”

Leon Levine, a North Carolina native, is one of Charlotte’s most active philanthropists, and had earlier provided a challenge gift of $500,000 to the Charlotte Symphony as part of its bridge funding initiative in 2009.  “The Leon Levine Foundation is proud to continue to support this institution and the vision of its dynamic new leader, Christopher Warren-Green,” he said. “The Symphony is one of the cornerstones of our community and I hope that all who value arts, culture and education in Charlotte will join me and my wife Sandra in helping to secure the Symphony’s future.” 

Jim Rogers, Chairman, President and CEO of Duke Energy, and his wife Mary Anne, who serves on the Charlotte Symphony Board of Directors, most recently were announced as winners of the 2011 Association of Fundraising Professionals Outstanding Philanthropist award.  “Jim and I believe that every great city needs a great orchestra,” said Mrs. Rogers.  “We see our support as an investment - not only in the Charlotte Symphony, but in the future of Charlotte.”

“Charlotte is fortunate to have had the Charlotte Symphony as part of our community for 80 years, now led by a true world class artist in Christopher,” said former Governor James G. Martin. “If we are to secure this asset for Charlotte’s future, it is vitally important for a larger number of families, foundations and employers to join us in this campaign.”

“Our Symphony performs with relentless passion,” said Music Director Christopher Warren-Green. “And, we intend to do much more – our excellence will be measured not only in how we play, but how we serve the city that my wife Rosemary and I now call home.”

Founded in 1932, the Charlotte Symphony is the largest and most active professional performing arts organization in the central Carolinas, giving nearly 100 performances each season and reaching an annual attendance of 200,000 listeners.  Now in its 80th season, the orchestra employs 62 musicians on full-time contracts and is led by the acclaimed conductor Christopher Warren-Green, who began his tenure with the CSO in the fall of 2010.  Mr. Warren-Green’s nearly four decades of artistic accomplishments most recently included serving as music conductor for April’s royal wedding of Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton, an event viewed by more than two billion people worldwide.

Dedicated to mentoring the region’s best young musicians, the Symphony sponsors two Youth Orchestras serving more than 160 children from 4th through 12th grades. Additional educational concerts and teaching programs bring music to hundreds of local school children, including the expanding after-school instruction program at Winterfield Elementary School, which serves as a model for a broader initiative which could ultimately serve schools throughout the community.

Each year, small ensembles of Charlotte Symphony musicians perform “Healing Hands” outreach services in hospitals, retirement centers, and nursing homes, bringing the power and joy of live music to those who would otherwise not hear it.

The Oratorio Singers of Charlotte, founded in 1952, is the acclaimed volunteer chorus of the Charlotte Symphony and includes the 140-voice main chorus and the 50-voice Chamber Singers. Oratorio Director Scott Allen Jarrett and the choruses perform with the orchestra several times each season, including the annual “Messiah” in December.

The Charlotte Symphony mobilizes more than 750 volunteers each year, though the Symphony, the Oratorio Singers, The Symphony Guild of Charlotte, Inc., the Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestras Parents’ Association, and through “CSO PULSE”, the newly formed young affiliates group of the Charlotte Symphony.

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