Because of a lack of funding, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will terminate its 25-year series of weekly nationally syndicated radio broadcasts after this weekend. The final CSO concert broadcast will be, appropriately enough, a performance of the Verdi Requiem from last season, airing at 1 p.m. Sunday on WFMT-FM 98.7.
Although the CSO and the WFMT Fine Arts Network in February were awarded a three-year, $1.2 million challenge grant from the Elizabeth Morse and Elizabeth Morse Genius Charitable Trusts to support the series, the CSO could not come up with additional funding to cover the remaining costs, according to CSO Association President Henry Fogel. The series costs more than $1 million annually.
Fogel said the orchestra will continue to look for sponsorship for the broadcasts but he is “not optimistic” about finding the money in the present economic climate. The CSO will continue to broadcast weekly programs of its commercial recordings through the end of the year. The CSO was the last remaining U.S. orchestra to be heard on the radio 52 weeks a year.”Obviously we don’t want to see these [CSO broadcasts] go — nobody does,” said David Levin, vice president of WFMT Radio Networks. “The fact that any American orchestra is on the air at all these days is a blessing,” he said, adding that the further economic slowdown as a result of the recent terrorist bombings has only “compounded” the difficulty of securing funding for U.S. orchestras’ concert broadcasts.
