“First of All You Need a Good Foundation:” The Ford Foundation’s Program for Symphony Orchestras

In 1966, the Ford Foundation began an ambitious ten-year program to support North American symphony orchestras. Through a total investment of $80.2 million to sixty-one orchestras in the United States and Puerto Rico, the Ford Foundation sought to improve the economic conditions of orchestral musicians and assure the financial stability of individual orchestral institutions. Toward this goal, the Ford Foundation issued both expendable funds, distributed during the first five years of the program, and endowment funds, which were released at the end of the program and contingent on the orchestras matching the foundation’s contributions. Building on heightened public interest in symphonic music, the Ford Foundation’s Program for Symphony Orchestras contributed to the growth and success of American orchestras in the 1960s and 1970s. In not only enhancing the level of standing associated with orchestral musicians and orchestral institutions, but also encouraging orchestras to develop and improve fundraising mechanisms, the Ford Foundation made an unprecedented bet on the success of orchestral music in North America. This dissertation investigates the Ford Foundation’s support of orchestras in the 1960s and 1970s within postwar American culture, and examines how the Ford Foundation’s Program for Symphony Orchestras intertwined with local factors to transform individual orchestras. I focus on two divergent grantees: the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, which eventually declared bankruptcy in the late 1980s, and the Minnesota Orchestra, which raised more endowment matching funds than any other grantee orchestra. Based on interviews and archival research, these case studies show how the efficacy of the Program for Symphony Orchestras depended greatly on local factors. Furthermore, I consider the longer-term effects of the program, and the prospects for a similar program today