With the passing of Jerome Kern, we're sharing this 2014 profile of the civic leader.
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"Has Jerry done a good job? Yes. Has Jerry miffed a couple of people? Probably," says former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, who became a symphony boardmember two years ago."But overall, considering how much time Jerry and Mary have put in, they are working to broaden the symphony's appeal. And that's a good thing. So I think we're lucky to have him."
Kern's no-nonsense approach is apparent as soon as you walk in the door of his spartan, immaculate office, around the corner from the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Yes, he readily admits, he's rich, and he could be off traveling the world or playing golf full-time .
"Of course, it's the highlight of my career, if you talk to any male," says Kern with a smirk."But I will say it publicly: There were no special perks." Instead, his role at Playboy was the same as it's been through much of his career: He was the fixer. Like Playboy, the symphony had a strong brand. While it's rarely considered in the same league as the country's top orchestras — the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, many of which have hefty endowments — fans argue that the CSO has a history of outshining its reputation and budget, and also of pushing boundaries.
The trouble had been all over the news. While Denver voters had approved a $60 million bond issue in 2007 to renovate Boettcher Concert Hall — the largest part of the $550 million Better Denver Program passed that year — the symphony hadn't come close to raising the $30 million in donations it needed to collect in order to take advantage of the bond vote. What's more, the orchestra hadn't had a music director for three years.
And while Colorado might still have its fair share of older, wealthy classical-music fans, they aren't necessarily supporting the Colorado Symphony."We have one of the wealthiest communities in the world in Vail, but they have the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival," says Pete Vriesenga, president of the Denver Musicians Association."Some of the big donors in Vail should pay more attention to the Colorado Symphony rather than just fly in the New York Philharmonic.
The situation came to a head on Friday, September 23: After the musicians put off a vote to accept additional pay cuts, twenty of the thirty community members on the orchestra's board resigned. So instead, Kern worked to increase revenues. He used $125,000 of his own money to spur a flurry of donations, large and small, and the organization ended the 2011-2012 season with a budget surplus. And while there were a lot of positions to fill on the symphony's board after the trustee shake-up, the Kerns knew their way around Denver's elite. Soon they'd landed big names like former mayor Webb and Rich Kylberg, vice-president of communications for Arrow Electronics.
Kern doesn't meddle much with the artistic side of the operation, he says:"I don't add much value to the programming or marketing of the music." But his resolute, can-do attitude infuses the organization's overall approach."Jerry is an energizing kind of guy," says Basil Vendryes, principal viola for the symphony."He does things that have not been done before, and he embraces them.
But did that attention translate to a big win for the budget? A few regulars were turned off by the cannabis series, Bond acknowledges; roughly twenty households downgraded or canceled their subscriptions in part because of it, and about twenty regular donors walked away.
When Boettcher Concert Hall opened in 1978 as the new home of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, it was celebrated as the country's first symphony hall in the round, the centerpiece of the new Denver Performing Arts Complex. Since then, however, Boettcher's reputation has soured. "People voted for improvements to the hall," he adds."The conundrum is, what do you do with the money that is left that would be meaningful?"
Early this year, the symphony asked the city to significantly cut its $323,000 rent for the 2014-2015 season, to help cover the costs of finding a temporary home during Boettcher's renovations, originally set for summer 2015. If the city declined, the symphony suggested that it might vacate the premises as soon as this September.
While the symphony might be the most forthright in its opposition to the proposal, it's not the only arts-complex tenant dismayed by the idea of scrapping Boettcher — especially if that means the symphony might move into the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, which already houses the ballet and opera."The Ellie is a beautiful hall, but it wasn't made for a symphony," says Gil Boggs, artistic director of the Colorado Ballet.
"There were times in the past when the city administrations were much more economically supportive of the symphony," Kern says."It was true that both the Webb administration and the Hickenlooper administration were much more economically supportive than the Hancock administration. And when there were conversations about how to handle a variety of problems, there was real dialogue between the administration and the symphony.
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