But members of the orchestra insist there is no reason to panic — yet. There will, they say, be a fifth season in October or November. They’ve devised a programme and have contacted conductors and soloists. All they need is a sponsor — and discussions are proceeding.
The JPO’s logo features the graceful neck of a giraffe; the stage and conductor’s podium are decked with carved wooden giraffes. But the orchestra’s symbol should be a phoenix. The JPO grew from the ashes of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), which died 19 months ago when a major sponsor withdrew funding. Some top NSO members emigrated. The rest put the JPO together and new players — including nearly a dozen young black musicians — have joined the permanent company.
The orchestra has survived largely on the support of a strong core of concert-goers. The Linder Auditorium attracts an average 80% house when the orchestra plays. That, plus what chairperson Stephen Jurisich describes as “prudent management of finances”, was good enough to fund the third season this year, which, unlike the first two, did not attract a major sponsor.
But the kitty is too low to try that again, despite a level of cheese-paring that would warm the heart of a Dickensian workhouse warden.
Permanent members of the company support themselves, playing with the JPO on a freelance basis only, and teaching or performing elsewhere most of the time. “At the end of the day, they have to make a living,” says JPO spokesperson Janet Mitchell, who notes it’s easier for violinists than wind and brass musicians to find gigs.
Rehearsals have been cut from three to two sessions a programme. A third weekly concert in Pretoria was dropped because it wasn’t drawing an audience to match Johannesburg’s. The chairs come with the hall, but musicians bring their own music stands. “We own nothing,” says Thomas, “except the giraffes on the podium.”
The orchestra survives with no staff; musicians and volunteers do everything, from shifting the piano onstage during a concert to fetching visiting artists from the airport — and applying for funds. Not that requests for government funding have got them anywhere, says first trombone Nathan Thomas, the musicians’ representative on the executive committee. Not the city, the province nor even the Lotto organisers has responded to applications for help — although this week the National Arts Council (NAC) expressed an interest in sending funds the JPO’s way.
Yet with the NAC required to spread its largesse across the country and among all art forms, however timely its grant, the JPO will still need a major sponsor every season.
The lack of money affects the programme — although happily, the composers who draw the crowds are the ones who cost the least. It’s partly a rights issue: a work enters the public domain only 50 years after the composer’s death. So the JPO would have to pay substantial royalties to perform, say, György Ligeti’s Cello Concerto — but not Beethoven’s Fifth. Still, the audience seems unable to get enough Beethoven — and anyway, says Thomas, “20th-century music scares people. Basically what most orchestras do, if you play Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis you’d put Beethoven before and after it.”
There are other savings. “The size of the orchestra depends on the genre of the music,” says Jurisich, an actuary, appointed chairperson after he offered to help put the JPO on a sound financial footing. “You only need a 50- or 60-piece orchestra if you’re doing the classical repertoire. Mozart and Beethoven didn’t score for as many instruments as Mahler, Rachmaninoff and Brahms.”
It’s tempting, considering audience preferences and finances, to play safe. But foreign sponsors can push the musical envelope. The Chinese embassy paid for two conductors and soloists this year performing work by Chinese composers. Johannesburg audiences, wary of Chinese music but drawn by the “Beethoven before and after” concept, found themselves entranced by the music and, last month, by soloist Yang Jing, who played the pipa, an ancient lute. At intermission there was a huge crowd round the table where she was signing her CDs.
“Classical music,” says Jurisich, “is something that is best shared.”
Thomas agrees. “I’d like to see 15 great orchestras performing and successful. How can you have too much music?”