Breaking news: Atlanta Symphony names new president, an educator from beyond the orchestral gates by Pierre Ruhe

Classical Music

Breaking news: Atlanta Symphony names new president, an educator from beyond the orchestral gates

By Pierre Ruhe | Apr 6, 2010

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra offered news of its new president, Stanley E. Romanstein, first to the AJC. You can read it here. The news will go out to the national media tomorrow morning.

Romanstein’s appointment was voted on by the ASO board Monday. It comes just a week after the surprise resignation of the orchestra’s top fund-raiser, Paul Hogle, who departs Atlanta for the Detroit Symphony. Here’s a link to that story on ArtsCriticATL. Romanstein replaces Allison Vulgamore, who left Atlanta in December to take charge of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Read about that move here.

Some points that did not make it into today’s story: Romanstein’s current job as president and CEO of the Minnesota Humanites Center in St. Paul, where he’s been for nine years, involves an organization with a budget of $4.2 million. The Atlanta Symphony’s is $45.6 million. While Romanstein told me that a new concert hall is “important to address,” he emphasized that “the first order of business is to stabilize and secure financially the organization. We’re not-for-profit, but we have to stop thinking of ourselves as a charitable organization dependent on the kindness of strangers.”

He said he wasn’t clear on the ASO’s deficit, which had been reported as about $4.5 million last fall but is projected for the 2011 fiscal year to be down to $2.9 million. The unionized ASO musicians have helped lower expenses. For ASO staff, there have been a lot of cuts; furloughs and vacancies will continue.

From left: music director Robert Spano, president Stanley Romanstein, board chairman Ben Johnson. Photos by Jeff Roffman

Romanstein, who grew up on James Island in Charleston, S.C., has a master’s degree in conducting and a doctorate in musicology (on Palestrina and Monteverdi) from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He spent a year of his Fulbright Scholarship in Israel at Hebrew University. For the ASO job, he was head-hunted by Sally Sterling of SpencerStuart, a national consulting firm that handled similar job searches for the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic.

Romanstein boasts at least one powerful link with the Atlanta Symphony: he sang in former ASO music director Robert Shaw’s choruses many times near the end of his life, including in France as part of the Shaw Festival Singers. “As as a singer and an aspiring choral conductor, Mr. Shaw was my hero.”

On the ASO Website there’s a video conversation between Romanstein and music director Robert Spano.

7 Comments

James R. Oxendine

1

Congratulations and welcome to Dr.Romanstei. Perhaps he will be able to bridge the divide that has lingered since the departure of Yoel Levi and , because of his Minnesota tenure,encourage the Northwest heavy Delta senior management team to become more active in their support of the ASO.

06 Apr
IveyLeaguer

2

Pierre,

My daughter sang with Shaw in his final two years and I attended concerts with Levi any number of times before I moved away, and thought he was great. What was the fracturing all about? Levi must have butted heads with somebody over something, and apparently it didn’t turnout well for the ASO.
Of course I support the ASO, but how can I find out what happened?
Thanks.

Thanks

Thanks

06 Apr
Tenor 1

3

As a member of The Chorus, I look forward to meeting Dr. Romanstein next Monday at our rehearsal. He has big shoes to fill in Allison’s absence but he seems like a good fit for the job. One point to consider though, I believe a new hall will make a big difference in attendance for all symphony concerts. Just ask the Atlanta Opera what the Cobb Energy Center did for them. I hope he will not take to long to address this pressing issue for the ASO, current economics not withstanding.

06 Apr
ASOC Tenor II

4

As a 40-year “founding member” of the ASO Chorus I look forward to meeting Dr. Romanstein at our Verdi Requiem rehearsal with Norman Mackenzie next Monday evening. I’m excited to learn that Stanley is a fellow South Carolina native and chorister who like me loved and valued the privilege of getting to work directly with Robert Shaw. I enjoyed his “welcome interview” video today with Robert Spano, and am encouraged by his optimism about the future financial and artistic stability of the ASO and his conviction that music and the arts are not a luxury, but a necessity for humanity, especially in times such as these.

06 Apr
Anon

5

I apologize for not signing my name to this but for job security reasons, I can not.

Tenor 1,

While moving the Opera to the CEC was good for some PR and a few extra subscribers, the number of tickets sold has tapered off to pre-move levels. A new hall doesn’t improve the product or alter people’s opinion about it.

06 Apr
BPJ

6

In the case of the ASO, a new hall would “improve the product”; the current hall is acoustically inadequate.

06 Apr
Joel Dallow, ASO cellist

7

As far as the new CEO goes, I was very impressed with him at the initial announcement. He says all the right things and speaks my language. As you probably know, I am passionate about arts education, and that was one of the first things he addressed. I have been talking about this for some time now; we will lose our audience if we don’t tap in to that.
Also, the other thing he spoke bluntly about was that we have to make the public aware that we are not just a cultural institution, but an economic generator. This is another item I happen to be passionate about. We spend too much time apologizing for what we do and not enough time pointing this out. I am sure you are aware of the Americans for the arts economic impact study that shows the arts have an economic impact of $166.2 Billion annually. I think Roswell alone is around $13 million.
I have actually stood in front of the orchestra on more then one occasion talking about these very points. It was strange to hear those same thoughts coming out of the new CEO’s mouth. The question will be what he does with these points and how they work for our orchestra’s advantage. That of course remains to be seen. Talk is cheap!

06 Apr

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