Fred Bronstein
president@slso.org
Fred Bronstein
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra President and Executive Director
Fred Bronstein, has been the president and executive director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra since March 2008. Most recently, Bronstein served as president and CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from July 2002 through February 2008.
Bronstein arrived at the Dallas Symphony during a time of economic challenge in July 2002 and took immediate action to ensure fiscal stability, artistic enhancements and long-term prosperity for the orchestra. By implementing expense reductions and disciplining recurring operating expenses to a 10% increase over five years, and through a series of new fund raising initiatives, Bronstein led the DSO to four consecutive years of balanced budgets, from 2004 to 2007. During his 5-year tenure, the Dallas Symphony’s annual fund raising for operations has increased 30%, from $7.14 million to $9.3 million, its highest level ever. He also led the successful match of the largest endowment gift in DSO history, a $10 million challenge grant, which along with additional gifts and market growth led to a more than 70% increase in endowment assets, from $70 million in May 2002 to an endowment that exceeds $120 million today. Bronstein has overseen initiation of a theme-based approach to programming including a series of successful festivals and specials that, supported by aggressive new marketing initiatives, led to a 7.5% increase in gross ticket revenues in 2006. Continued recent successes in audience development initiatives have led to a 14% increase in paid attendance for the core series at mid-point of the 2007-2008 season, over last season. Also during Bronstein’s tenure, a new recording relationship with Hyperion Records was inaugurated resulting in the Dallas Symphony’s highly successful Rachmaninoff CD – recipient of the prestigious Gramophone Editor’s Choice award for 2005 and a new partnership secured with Performance Today for national broadcasts of selected Dallas Symphony Orchestra performances.
Under Bronstein’s leadership, the Dallas Symphony has initiated a series of bold new community collaborations with important Dallas cultural organizations including Symphonic Sundays at the Nasher in collaboration with The Nasher Sculpture Center, a commemorative program with The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, the first-ever joint performance with the Fort Worth Symphony, and the joint-commission of a new dance work in collaboration with The Dallas Black Dance Theater. The Dallas Symphony’s strong commitment to community engagement and diversity as well as the growing world-wide prestige of the DSO under Bronstein’s leadership was recognized in 2006 when the Dallas Symphony received the first-ever Celebration of Diversity award and The Greater Dallas Chamber’s prestigious International Business Achievement Award.
Bronstein’s tenure has included negotiation and signing of a five-year collective bargaining agreement with the Dallas Symphony musicians through August 2009, extending the use agreement for the Meyerson Symphony Center through 2019 and a major governance review process designed to increase board participation as well as strengthen and streamline governance at the Dallas Symphony Association. Bronstein also led the planning of a ten-year strategic vision, A Bold Plan for Greatness, to move the Dallas Symphony to the highest tier of American orchestras. Most recently, he developed and oversaw the process to identify and recruit the next music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, resulting in the selection of music director designate Jaap van Zweden.
Bronstein was president and CEO of the Omaha Symphony from November 1998 to May 2002. From 1996 to 1998, he served as executive director of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Prior to that, Bronstein was a Management Fellow with the formerly named American Symphony Orchestra League. Bronstein received a bachelor of music from Boston University, master of music from the Manhattan School of Music and a doctor of musical arts degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He subsequently co-founded and performed as pianist in Aequalis, a nationally touring chamber ensemble.
Bronstein has served on numerous panels including those of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Interdisciplinary Grants Review Panel for the Maine Arts Commission. Bronstein is very active in the orchestra industry and the League of American Orchestras where he currently represents managers of the major orchestras on the Collaborative Data Project Task Force and chairs the Selection Committee for the League’s Orchestra Management Fellowship Program. In 2004, Bronstein was one of a select group of national arts executives invited to write for Aspatore Books’ recent publication of The Performing Arts Business, resulting in Bronstein’s chapter entitled An American Orchestra and he has been a contributor to Aspatore’s ExecBlueprints online articles. In 2005, Bronstein was named recipient of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts Distinguished Alumni Award for Distinguished Service to the Field, and was subsequently elected to the Board of Overseers of Boston University in 2006.
