When the musicians of the San Antonio Philharmonic gathered on a recent night to rehearse Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the mood was celebratory.
The Philharmonic, which was formed after the demise in 2022 of the San Antonio Symphony, the city’s 83-year-old ensemble, had reason to be hopeful. The ensemble had found a new home inside an ornate Masonic temple; it had recruited a respected music director, Jeffrey Kahane; and it had unveiled an ambitious slate of programming, including a mix of contemporary and classical works.
“We’ve got a beautiful path forward,” said Lauren Eberhart, a veteran trumpet player. “I’m not buying into the doom and gloom.”
But as Beethoven’s music echoed through the Masonic temple’s auditorium, the challenges facing the Philharmonic were also present.
Staff turnover has hampered some of the Philharmonic’s priorities. Bitter disputes have erupted among board members and donors. And financial strains have forced the orchestra to make last-minute trims to its season.
The Philharmonic hopes to move beyond those troubles and show that San Antonio, with a population of about 1.5 million, can support a thriving orchestra. But it is attempting to do so at a difficult moment for American symphonies, which have long faced existential questions.
Across the country, orchestras are still recovering from the hardships of the pandemic, which exacerbated financial difficulties at many institutions. Audience habits have shifted, and box-office revenues have dwindled with the decline of the old subscription model for selling season tickets, leaving ensembles to depend increasingly on donations.
San Antonio hopes to follow the example of other orchestras that have emerged from bankruptcies and management woes, in places like New Orleans; Kansas City, Mo.; Denver and elsewhere. But it can be a difficult road, filled with thorny legal and financial questions, staffing issues and internecine disputes.
“They have to show a united front,” said Mark Volpe, a veteran orchestra leader who most recently managed the Boston Symphony Orchestra. “They have to have a purpose and a mission that has hopefully evolved from the mission that failed.”
San Antonio’s leaders say they are undaunted by the challenges. They say that they are committed to finding new audiences and patrons in the community, and that they want to take a creative approach to programming. The ensemble has played in recent months at lucha libre matches and alongside pop stars, including the singer-songwriter Christopher Cross, who is from San Antonio. This month, the orchestra presented “Selena Vive,” featuring hits by the Tejano singing star.
The Philharmonic has opened offices on San Antonio’s west side, home to some of the city’s poorest residents, part of its efforts to make the arts more accessible.
“We have to be bold,” said Roberto Treviño, a former City Council member who has served as the ensemble’s executive director since 2023. “We’re prioritizing the community. How do we get out for the community? How do we be there for them?”
The San Antonio Philharmonic was born out of a crisis in 2022, when the San Antonio Symphony’s managers, citing financial problems worsened by the pandemic, proposed cutting the number of players to 42 from 72, shortening the season and reducing pay by almost a third. The symphony, a full-time ensemble, had been a pillar in the community since it was founded in 1939 by Max Reiter, an Italian-born conductor.
The musicians went on strike to protest the cuts, and the orchestra filed for bankruptcy. Two months later, a group of veteran musicians announced the creation of the Philharmonic. With support from donors, they planned an initial season of 10 classical concerts and three pops programs at the First Baptist Church in San Antonio.
Brian Petkovich, a bassoonist who helped found the new ensemble, said the difficulties of the pandemic had inspired the musicians to try to keep the ensemble alive: “the fact that people were isolated and that the performing arts are, at the core, a person-to-person contact.”
“It’s neighbors playing for their neighbors,” he added.
The Philharmonic is made up of roughly 70 orchestra members, about half of whom played in the San Antonio Symphony. The musicians are still represented by a union, the American Federation of Musicians. Their base pay is $184 per concert or rehearsal, compared with $160 previously, though they no longer have a pension fund or a health insurance stipend. The season is 18 weeks long, compared with 26 weeks previously.
While the birth of the Philharmonic drew praise in San Antonio, the fledgling organization has run into some difficulties.
The organization has been forced to postpone some concerts at the last minute because of financial problems. And there have been high-profile departures, including Sylvia Romo, the Philharmonic’s chief financial officer, who left just as the 2024-25 season was starting in September.
In an interview, Romo cited a “lack of accountability, a lack of proper accounting policy and weak internal controls.”
“All these things an organization should have in place,” she said, “and they didn’t.”
Treviño disputed Romo’s account, saying her comments were “attempts to try to smear an organization that’s already got a lot to deal with.”
The troubles have extended to the Philharmonic’s board, which was paralyzed last year by power struggles.
In the fall, a former board member, David Wood, and his wife, Colette Holt, sued the Philharmonic, accusing the orchestra of failing to pay back loans to acquire a music library and a band shell. The Philharmonic filed a countersuit, accusing Wood and others of trying to seize control of the board.
The Philharmonic, in its third season, is now working to get back on track.
The orchestra recently announced it had found a permanent home: the Scottish Rite Cathedral, a Masonic hall in downtown San Antonio. The hall, built in 1924, will likely require more than $40 million in repairs and renovations; the Philharmonic said it hoped to secure private donations and government aid.
This season is the first under Kahane, a veteran conductor who began appearing with the San Antonio Symphony in the early 1990s.
Kahane said he had been surprised by the scale of the political and legal challenges the orchestra has faced. He blamed the turmoil on a “relatively small group of individuals who have agendas.”
And though the orchestra is in what he called a “delicate condition,” he said he was optimistic.
“A lot of this conflict is already or soon will be in the rearview mirror and we will be moving forward,” he said. “People will come to see that we are a viable institution and a going concern.”
“The overwhelming sentiment, certainly among our audiences and in our orchestra, is there is tremendous potential,” he added.
The Philharmonic’s musicians say they believe they are now on more stable ground. As they gathered to play Beethoven at the Scottish Rite with Kahane in November — their first rehearsals in the space — they smiled and hugged one another.
Eberhart, the trumpet player, was in tears.
“We’ve had this dream for a long time,” she said. “It’s kind of emotional for me, with everything we’ve been through.”
