"They're building new edifices," says Pinchas Zukerman, sitting in his office in the 4-year-old Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and obviously referring to the building in which he sits.
"But nobody's asking what we're going to put in them," he says.Zukerman, 44, has spent a lifetime in music. Most famous as a violin soloist, the Israeli-born, Juilliard-educated Zukerman is also widely respected as a viola soloist, as a conductor and as a chamber music collaborator on both violin and viola.
He served eight years as music director of Minnesota's St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and is currently the Dallas Symphony's principal guest conductor and artistic director of the orchestra's substantial summer music festival, which recently finished a successful series. He most recently appeared in Fort Worth as soloist and conductor with the Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra in November 1991, and he knows the American orchestral scene intimately.
He is not optimistic about its future.
"It's very bad," he says of the current state of the American orchestra. "We're choking to death."
He wasn't talking about the quality of musicmaking, but about the prospects for stability in the field.
"In general, the orchestras are very good," he says. "There used to be a huge discrepancy between the `B' orchestras and the major orchestras. But now there's not. . . . The `B' orchestras - like Dallas or Cincinnati - have proven that they are as good as any. One-hundred-fifty or 200 people will audition for one opening. But, with more concerts and better players, we have not been able to secure the life of these great institutions. It's a paradox."
Zukerman sees two huge problems looming for orchestras: financing and the decline of music education in America.
He points out that there's a tremendous problem just making ends meet.
"With an orchestra, you try to get 48-50 percent earned income," he says. "And that's been difficult to achieve recently, partly because of the overall economy. You can't make a profit even with sold-out houses. Contributed income is bad because of the economy. Companies are not doing well. It's a snowball effect."
In order to be fair to musicians in the orchestras, Zukerman says that they will have to be paid 30 percent more over the next 10 years.
"And I don't see how we will be able to do that," he says. "Either you cut or you amalgamate. You could cut expenses by decreasing the season, but that's a Band-Aid. . . ."
He suggests that individual states combine their financial and personnel resources.
"I don't see why you can't have everything go into one account," he says. "I'm advocating that people look at the numbers and act collectively."
He's also concerned about music's place in American culture.
"Culture is still a hobby," he says. "If Ross Perot came into this room and offered to give $100 million to the symphony, I wouldn't take it. We don't have the personnel to manage it.
"The big question is, what is culture all about? In the past 15 years, we have seen a tremendous cut in education. We have to bring it back."