At a time when arts organizations continue to struggle and some like the New York City Opera have folded, the Shelton-based Barnum Financial Group and the Westchester Philharmonic are making beautiful music together.
“Our relationship is twofold,” says financial services representative Byrke Sestok, a senior financial planner with Barnum, an office of MetLife that provides a full range of investment and risk management products and services to more than 230,000 clients. “We provide economic support”¦ and financial education information on donor-giving programs ”” smart ways to provide more to the Phil.”
With friends like these, the Philharmonic is able to continue its series of well-received concerts at Westchester”™s Purchase College”™s Performing Arts Center, which this season includes a Nov. 24 performance with pianist Jeremy Denk as soloist and orchestra leader.
“It”™s been a dicey few years,” says Joshua Worby, executive director of the orchestra. “But we”™re hanging in.”
Thanks in part to Barnum financial services representatives Christina Maurillo, Las Morrison, Peter Scarlato, Byrke Sestok and Christopher O. Titcombe. The five are community-minded individuals who work out of Barnum”™s Elmsford office and are avocational musicians and/or music lovers. They decided, with Barnum”™s assistance, to team to help the Philharmonic after meeting with Worby this past spring.
“We had a matchmaker that brought us together,” he says. “It was like a blind date.”
A blind date that has developed into a serious relationship: As an underwriting partner, Barnum donated $5,000 to the Friends of the Philharmonic dinner in June. Armed with information from the five, Worby says, “We are encouraging our patron base to think of planned giving to the Philharmonic, in terms of bequests, charitable remainder trusts and other tax-advantaged ways like transfers of property.
“We are encouraging our donors to think long-range operationally to help us secure our present and our future,” he says.
The Philharmonic, Worby says, is looking to develop a cash surplus and an endowment as well as to enhance its award-winning education program, always a drawing card for funders, particularly at a time when studies show early music education is a key to later success.
Helping the Philharmonic achieve these goals is the goal of the Barnum five.
“It”™s possible that (Phil donors) may want to consult with us,” Sestok says, “but we”™re not soliciting their business.”
The Westchester Philharmonic was born in 1983 as the New Orchestra of Westchester and within a few seasons became the Westchester Philharmonic. From its inception through the 2007-08 season, the orchestra ”” which ranges from 60 to 90 professional area musicians, depending on the program ”” was led by Paul Lustig Dunkel. Then the Philharmonic made headlines when it announced that violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman would succeed him, beginning in October of 2008 ”” just as the bottom was falling out of the stock market.
“It was a sizable three-year contract,” Worby says. “We made it through 2 ½ years. We couldn”™t continue.” (Today the orchestra has a series of rotating conductors.)
While reviews have been strong and the box office good, he says that subscriptions and single-ticket sales make up only a third of the approximately $1 million operating budget. The remaining two-thirds come from individual donors, foundations and government grants and those sources dried up when the economy tanked.
Now with the Barnum partnership, the Philharmonic is reviving, along with the economy.
We”™re not out of the woods yet,” Worby says, “but we”™re getting there.”
The Westchester Philharmonic”™s season continues Nov. 24 with pianist Jeremy Denk as soloist and orchestra leader in a program of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. For more information, call (914) 682-3707 or visit westchesterphil.org.
