K-W Symphony considering ‘potential ceasing of operations’

Just days after announcing the cancellation of their 2023-2024 season, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (KWS) has made another difficult announcement.

In a release sent to CityNews 570, staff with the symphony have announced that they may have to cease operations all together should substantial funding not become available.

Citing an “unprecedented rise” in costs following the COVID-19 pandemic, the symphony board said “exhaustive efforts were made” to secure additional funding from partners – including government, major donors and past supporters to run the 2023/24 season.

“Despite our persistent efforts over the last year, we have been unable to secure the funding necessary to continue our operations this season.” said Rachel Smith-Spencer, chair of the board of directors.

KWS has indicated that roughly $2 million dollars in funding would be required for the 2023/24 season.

The organization noted that it is open to “immediate conversations” with governments and potential supporters to secure that funding, to be used to allow time for the organization to “restructure and find new and sustainable ways of operating.”

Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony has also indicated it is exploring all options on how to move forward – including insolvency.

A spokesperson with KWS confirmed to CityNews Kitchener that the organization needs the $2 million by the end of the week to avoid insolvency.

Heather Galt is the past chair with the organization and she said in an interview with CityNews 570 that everyone is heartbroken with this decision.

“The conversations were incredibly painful. This is not a decision that any of us ever wanted to make,” said Galt. “We know how profoundly it is affecting everybody across the community (…) everybody is heartbroken by where we are.”

Galt said the pandemic took an organization that was already fragile and put them in a situation where their options were limited very, very quickly.

“Unfortunately, where we are is in the very last stages of a situation we hoped we’d never reach,” she said. “Before the pandemic, we would have about 8,000 annual subscribers who would purchase tickets before the season to come and enjoy somewhere between four and eight concerts over that season. This year, during that same period, we sold 2,000. As you can imagine that’s a devastating impact on an organization that depends on ticket revenue to survive.”

Galt responded to the reason why the announcement of cancelling the season came across as a rushed decision.

“It felt pretty fast to us too, to be transparent. In some ways, we’ve seen this coming for some time,” she said. “The organization as is true with organizations in the arts across the world and certainly in Canada, many arts organizations were always financially fragile and dependent every year on generosity and support of the community through ticket sales and donations. The way things unfolded here, we got confirmation in the last few days that we were not going to receive the support we were hoping for and in fact — counting on to help us move forward with this season. While it felt very rushed to those in our community, unfortunately it did happen quite quickly as sometimes is the case. We are managing as well as we can and communicating with everybody as quickly as we can as information becomes available.”

Smith-Spencer added that the current focus of the organization is on musicians, staff and members of their Youth Orchestra.

“We are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support for our musicians that has come in from our local community and the music community,” said Smith-Spencer.

“In the coming days, I look forward to having meaningful conversations about how we can secure a sustainable future for symphonic music in Waterloo Region.”