The Guelph Chamber Choir fears it might not have a next season.
At the end of 2022-2023 season the choir had a nearly $20,000 deficit but was able to recoup and use contingency funds to remain afloat. Those contingency funds have run out. Without substantial donations, grants and sponsors the choir doesn’t know how it will make the money back.
“We are at risk of the next season not going forward,” said general manager Tammy te Winkel.
The Guelph Chamber Choir has been around since 1980. From the start Gerry Neufeld was the artistic director and conductor. After 40 years he retired in 2018 and passed the baton onto Charlene Pauls. Today the choir is comprised of about 45 choral singers.
When te Winkel became chair of the choir in the mid 2000s it was the first time the organization went into the red. With a hefty donation it bounced back.
In more recent years the pandemic brought a bit of financial uncertainty but the choir was able to adapt with grants and emergency funding from all levels of government.
Now, attendance is about 80 to 90 per cent for its concerts. The choir gains a bit of money from concerts but it’s not enough to cover operational expenses. Two thirds of the budget is operating costs and one third is from ticket-based events.
“We are not a huge budget organization, you know, in relative terms. And yet, we're constantly feeling like we're on the precipice,” said Pauls.
Ticket sales have been good and the response from the community about the concerts has been great. It’s bittersweet because it's wonderful to hear but also hard to hear in this financial climate, said te Winkel.
Doing well is one thing but behind the scenes there are costs to keep things running and it’s difficult to find funding sources these days, said Pauls.
Ticket sales don’t pay for the organization. It may get lucky and break even, or make a tiny profit off of ticket sales.
Although the choir continues to apply for grants, so is every other arts organization. The competition is crowded, and not every group gets the grant they are used to getting year after year, said Dave Davidson, current chair of the Guelph Chamber Choir.
It doesn’t want to raise choir membership fees or raise ticket prices too much because it wants to keep loyal members and attendees around.
The choir wants to encourage people to donate monthly.
There are contingency plans and possible scenarios the organization has discussed. Options like stop early and try to rebuild for next season, punt next season to the season after or stop altogether.
“Nobody wants to close the books,” said Davidson.
When the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in September it came as a shock to the Guelph Chamber Choir.
In August te Winkel started a financial analysis of the chamber choir and she knew things weren’t looking good.
“We've been trying to be proactive in terms of awareness, and responsibility. And then when the K-W announcement came it just made it feel that much more real,” she said.
“And especially for those of us who were sort of aware of our own warning bells. It was very sobering.”
The choir isn’t a sea of elderly white people as some might assume. It’s diversified over the years and is shining a light on typically unheard voices. In its concerts the choir is aiming to “genuinely build and try to build a community that may not know us or that we may not know,” said te Winkel.
The average age of the chamber’s singers has dropped. It’s now mid 30s to 40s.
Pauls consciously creates music programming from more diverse sources and also hires BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) and non-binary artists. The purpose is to reflect “who we want to be in the world, and hopefully having a broader audience see themselves in what we're doing,” she said.
What audiences want has changed too. People don’t just want to sit there and be entertained. They want to be involved by singing and dancing too, said Davidson.
“It's about being relevant to Guelph, and to our audiences. It's about creating music that means something in our world today,” said Pauls.
The choir is excited about the next season and really wants it to come to fruition.
“I think there's so much dedication, energy, passion about what we do that we don't want to lose that,” said Davidson.
It’s been emotional for te Winkel to hear the audience feedback and to think that she might not hear it again breaks her heart.
Pauls believes the choir will be here next year.
To learn more about the Guelph Chamber Choir or to donate contact te Winkel at 519-993-6414 or visit the website.
