By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Funding rejection strikes sombre note for Red Deer Symphony Orchestra

Sep 5, 2018 | 1:02 PM

“We’re dying.”

The executive director of the 32-year-old Red Deer Symphony Orchestra shared the grim prognosis after a substantial funding request was voted down by Red Deer city council late Tuesday night.

The request put forth by Councillor Dianne Wyntjes was to provide the RDSO with $125,000 in annual operating funding. Council defeated the request in a 5-4 vote with Lawrence Lee, Tara Veer, Tanya Handley, Vesna Higham and Frank Wong voting against.

Had it been approved, the Symphony would have sacrificed eligibility for the Community Culture Development Fund (CCDF) in order to gain more from a different funding stream.

“We have been experiencing financial instability for about 10 years,” RDSO Executive Director Chandra Kastern told rdnewsNOW. “The CCDF is over-subscribed. About $350,000 is allocated every year, but they routinely receive in excess of half a million dollars in asks, so none of us receive what we ask for.”

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Kastern pointed to one factor which has made life harder for organizations like theirs in recent years – the 2019 Canada Winter Games.

“Arts and culture groups are competing for funding support, and that is a challenge. Something that is peanuts to the Games, like $50,000, can make or break an arts and culture organization,” she continued. “Reality for the last five years has meant competing for those dollars with something that is going to come and go out of our community, and we’ll still be here, hopefully.”

Wyntjes passionately went to bat for the Symphony, and took aim at Mayor Veer after the meeting.

“Our mayor often talks in the media and at presentations that sports is community building. I will challenge that because arts and culture is equally community building,” she said. “We had an opportunity this evening to give a message to our community supporters of arts and culture that we get it and we find the resources to deliver, but we missed it.”

Wyntjes understands why her council colleagues want to follow process and instead look at this during budget, but points out how difficult it typically is to find funding for things of this nature at that time.

“You’re deeply valued, but I have to be able to say the same answer to Sunnybrook Farm, to the Red Deer Cultural Heritage Society, to CentreFest, to Bard on Bower, to the Red Deer Royals, and those are just to name a few,” Veer said during the meeting.

Veer cited the Games celebration plaza, modernizations at RDC for the Symphony to perform, and other investments at the Welikoklad Event Centre and new North Red Deer Community Centre as indicators that council cares about the arts.

She also noted recent rejections of similar requests from the Red Deer Royals, Red Deer Native Friendship Society and Volunteer Central.

“I’m uncomfortable in approving this out of step with everything else because I am fully aware there are other organizations we’ve denied in recent months or who’ll be coming to the next council meeting looking for the same degree of funding.”

Kastern said if council can’t find them funding at budget time, their operations will drastically change starting in 2019.

The Red Deer Symphony Orchestra regularly employs 28 musicians and draws between 300 to 700 people for its concerts.

“We are a community asset. The Symphony itself is much like the museum, or the library or Kerry Wood Nature Centre,” Kastern remarked. “We are an asset and should be funded as such.”