Friday, May 2 brought some unpleasant emails to Eugene Symphony Executive Director Dave Moss.
“The first one came in at about 4:40 Pacific time, and then I received another one at about 6:30, so they were working late on a Friday night in [Washington] D.C.,” he said.
Those emails told Moss that $50,000 in National Endowment for the Arts grants that the symphony had previously been awarded would not be coming.
The grants were for a pair of concerts. The first was the March 20 performance of "The Planets" featuring a new concerto by composer-in-residence Dan Tepfer. The second is the May 22 performance of Wynton Marsalis’ "Swing Symphony," which will also be a farewell celebration for Music Director and Artistic Partner Francesco Lecce-Chong.
The Eugene Symphony has already spent the money, a practice that is common for such grants.
“NEA grants are mostly reimbursement grants, so we’ve spent those funds with the expectation that we’d be receiving $50,000 from the federal government,” said Moss.
He said the wording of the emails was vague, so the symphony still plans to file the necessary paperwork for the grants, but Moss puts chances of getting reimbursed at around 10%.
The money does not represent a large portion of the Eugene Symphony’s budget, which is around $3.5 million a year, but the organization is in its third year of deficit spending.
Moss said the loss of grants could eventually result in it adjusting its programming, most notably some free performances.
