The last several years have been difficult for the country’s symphonies. Global health crises, shifting audience interests, and overtaxed maestros have presented organizations with a number of pressing challenges that they have endeavored to meet, some with mixed results. In making sense of these dynamics, David La Piana, a highly successful consultant and author of The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution, presents the VUCA framing of key market challenges that are faced by the modern nonprofit organization: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.  Many of these challenges have only increased for orchestras in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, as ensembles across the nation work to respond to dwindling ticket sales and subscription rates. These impacts and challenges, too, are being felt across the entire sector, in organizations at the local, national, and global levels. 

For some, these struggles have led to the exploration of new approaches and even the formation of new organizations. The Muncie Symphony Orchestra, for example, joined forces with the Marion Philharmonic Orchestra to form Orchestra Indiana. This new group serves as an umbrella organization, seeking “to redefine the orchestra experience” for the music community of Indiana and allowing them to pool organizational resources to build toward a stronger organizational footing. For others, the field’s challenges have pushed them to make difficult decisions for their orchestra’s future. On March 6, 2026, the New York Times reported the sudden dismissal of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director, Andris Nelsons. Having held the post since 2014, Nelsons has been a fixture in the organization for over a decade. His dismissal was explained by the organization as the maestro and board not being "aligned on future vision” and came as a shock to the orchestra’s audiences and musicians. 

Neither of these endeavors has been without its own struggles. In Boston, the musicians themselves found out about the decision at the same time as the public, a lapse in communication that caught the players off-guard and left them to reckon with the end of a maestro’s tenure that has largely defined the culture of the ensemble. This confusion and shock was further heightened by the fact that Nelsons’s contract had recently shifted to a rolling, evergreen arrangement, seeming to indicate an intention on the part of the board to keep Nelsons in his post for the foreseeable future. This all has led to a great deal of public scrutiny over the decision, with some musicians even advocating for Nelsons’s reinstatement. Orchestra Indiana, too, has struggled, recording financial deficits for each year since its inception with little in the way of organizational asset growth. This, along with a transition in its artistic directorship, have meant that the orchestra has yet to establish the strengthened organizational footing they had hoped for. Thus, questions remain about what the road ahead for each group will look like and how they will manage to weather the challenges they have encountered.

However, there remains hope to be found in each of these situations. William A. Brown, author of Strategic Management in Nonprofit Organizations, points to the importance of “clarifying public benefit purpose, creating a strategic direction,” and “maintaining an external orientation” in the guidance of an organization’s strategic leadership and management. While each of these elements plays a key role in organizational activity, maintaining an external orientation may prove to hold particular relevance to the nation’s orchestras, as it centers on the organization’s efforts to deepen their connections with and services offered to their greater community. This will be vital, as each orchestra seeks to maintain the support of its current audiences while projecting the strong and exciting organizational image that will attract new audiences to their programs. For Orchestra Indiana, the group’s history as an outgrowth of the efforts of smaller, homegrown ensembles positions them well within the local artistic landscape and gives them a strong base of support to continue to cultivate and grow. The BSO’s mission, likewise, notes the organization’s aspirations to contribute meaningfully to the broader artistic landscape through performances, education, and training programs. Inherent in these goals is the idea of a strong external orientation for the orchestra, as these goals are only achievable through connection to the broader music community, particularly that of their home city. Thus, a recommitment to their core audiences may provide the necessary fuel for the organization’s efforts to establish its next artistic era.  

Community relationships, too, may continue to gain greater relevance for symphonies in the coming years in new and evolving ways. In this time of maestros taking on an ever-growing number of outside conducting roles and stretching themselves increasingly thin, questions have begun to arise as to whether orchestras and conductors should instead double down on their community ties. This constancy of outside engagement from top conductors can lead to a fracturing between themselves and their home orchestras, with ensembles at times spending as little as 12 to 14 weeks a year with their maestro.  A recentering of community ties not only stands to increase the level of audience buy-in in a symphony’s programs but also presents a more consistent framework of interaction that could strengthen an orchestra’s artistic product. Having a greater regularity of engagement between the orchestra and their chief conductor aids in engendering rich ensemble cohesion and allows all involved to dig deep into the artistic potential of the group. For Orchestra Indiana, their positioning as a regional orchestra is a strength in this regard. The orchestra currently operates at a scale that lends itself well to a more committed engagement between conductor and ensemble without the distraction of the out-of-country appointments that have become a burden for some larger groups around the country. 

For the BSO, this increased engagement with their chief conductor would not only strengthen the bonds between musicians and maestro, allowing them to build performances of the “highest level of excellence,”  but would offer the organization a strong demonstration of mission fulfillment that could buoy the organization’s image within the broader orchestral landscape as they seek a leader who will guide the orchestra’s next artistic era.  

Many questions remain around what the future will look like for the nation’s orchestras. Challenges seem to be constantly arising and will surely continue to do so. However, with the presentation of new challenges comes the creation of new strategies and paths toward a brighter future for the sector. 

Written by Chris Thomas, a graduate student in the MFA in Theatre - Arts Leadership program at Virginia Tech.