The executive director of the Oregon Bach Festival and the University administration are refuting a story published by The Register-Guard earlier this month that claimed financial concerns that lead to the hiring of a private consultant who prompted the festival director’s exit.
Both parties claim that the newspaper’s article, published Oct. 7, was incorrect.
Royce Saltzman, who spent 37 years at the helm of the festival, said he was considering retirement long before the report by the Pappas Consulting Group, a Connecticut-based consulting firm, made recommendations for a smooth transition to his successor.
The Register-Guard article implied that Saltzman’s retirement was a result of Alceste T. Pappas’ report, instead of the cause. Pappas had labeled Saltzman as “ineffective” according to the article, but the Pappas report is more critical of the festival’s administrative structure than of Saltzman.
Saltzman said the Register-Guard article is misleading and “doesn’t give a fair perspective” of what the report said. The Pappas report, commissioned by former University Provost John Moseley, does make several suggestions for transitioning to a new executive director but does not specifically say Saltzman should retire.
Given his age, Saltzman said his retirement was inevitable and that Pappas knew of his plans before she even came to the University.
“The person who did this report is a superb professional who does this kind of evaluation,” he said. “So when she came, she gave me the opportunity to discuss with her how best to transition. She helped me put it into perspective, and what she says in the report is the result of my discussions with her.” The Register-Guard article also included quotes from Moseley which implied that the festival’s financial burden had moved the University to hire Pappas and re-consider the festival’s worth.
“The real issue is money,” Moseley was quoted saying in the article. “It’s always money.” Linda Brady, the current Provost, was unavailable for comment on the article, but co-authored a statement with President Dave Frohnmayer saying the article painted a picture that was “unfair and just plain wrong.” The statement, titled “Bach Fest just not about money,” was submitted as a Register-Guard guest commentary and noted that the University’s financial concerns were being addressed.
Saltzman said the University is in the process of developing a $10 million endowment to help fund the festival. Although he will no longer be the executive director, Saltzman said he may continue to work for the festival in whatever capacity the University and his successor prefer.
“What seems to be of interest to the University, given the amount of time I’ve been involved in the festival and the people whom I know, is that my services will best be used to achieve the remaining part of the endowment goal,” he said.
Pappas’ report also looks at other problems the festival has encountered. It has recently had trouble drawing an audience. It identifies higher competition for resources and audience and reports that many of those interviewed found the festival’s material to be stale and repetitive.
George Evano, director of communications for the festival, said in an e-mail that the assessment that the festival is not selling enough tickets is fair, but said the trend of declining audiences is not just a problem in Oregon.
“An interesting phenomenon nationwide is that the arts on a whole, as an industry, are involving more and more people selling more tickets,” he said. “But many individual organizations are dealing with declining attendance.”
Evano said that an increase in the number of performing arts groups around the nation makes it hard to get live audiences, because there is so much entertainment to choose from. People can only spend so much money per year on live events, so individual groups have to work harder to attract audiences.
Saltzman said the festival’s smaller audiences could be attributed to several different factors including competition, marketing and choices people make about where to spend their money.
The Pappas report also questions the effectiveness of the festival’s marketing strategy, something Evano said is “open to debate.”
“Making marketing more difficult is the fact that audiences, particularly those in younger age groups, have an ever increasing variety of entertainment and media choices,” Evano said.
Saltzman said the festival has a three-year grant from the Paul Allen Foundation to study why there has been a drop in audience. The festival was concerned about smaller audiences prior to the release of the report, he said.
“That’s a major focus, to find out how we can work to build up our audience,” he said. “We have over 20 states and some foreign countries represented, so the festival is more than local.”
Saltzman said that about 30,000 people attend the festival and emphasized that the report does not mention the free and low-cost events the festival puts on.
“The reason we have free events is that we want to make the festival available to all socio-economic levels,” he said. “It’s very important that we make the festival accessible.”
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