In tune

It has become fashionable to knock orchestras, to denigrate them as museum culture, to see them as peripheral to contemporary cultural life. That, however, has not been the experience of Belfast-born Kathryn McDowell, the woman who has been managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) since August 2005.

She arrived at the LSO from the City of London Festival, where she was director, boasting an impressive CV of arts managements across the UK.

"The experience of hearing a symphony orchestra playing at the highest level," she says, "is just truly exhilarating. And I think that communicates to people, whatever their experience and background. We're testing that all the time, here. We've developed new forms of marketing.

"We're doing a lot by texting and e-mailing. And I know we're reaching people who haven't got a background with symphonic music.

"But when they come here, and they hear it played to the highest standards, they're persuaded by it. We know. Because they tell us and they come back."

The orchestra's annual budget is £12 million (€17.5 million), with "roughly a third coming from fundraising and the box office, a third from the Corporation of London and the Arts Council through grants, and a third from our engagements and commercial income".

Back in 2000, the orchestra founded its own record label, LSO Live, establishing a model for other orchestras to follow in a world where the major labels have cut back on orchestral projects. Digital downloads have now become a major factor in developing the recording activity.

The LSO was founded in 1904 by a group of freelance players, including a core who were rebelling against the conductor of the Proms, Henry Wood.

In his Proms orchestra, he abolished a practice that allowed musicians who had played in rehearsal to send deputies, who had not been present, to perform in the actual concerts. Players were in the habit of doing this when offers of more lucrative gigs came their way. Wood, the rebels felt, was threatening their livelihoods. And so the LSO was born.

The orchestra retains the independent spirit of its founders, and has remained a self-governing institution. There is, says McDowell, "a real sense of shared ownership, that everybody is working towards the success of the company, and that the overall success and interest of the company are more important than the self-interest of the individual".

For her, "the model of the musician members being the shareholders in the organisation is absolutely right".

"The shareholding is a slightly different model from the standard business model, because they don't share the profits. We are a charitable company and we are in receipt of public money and private sector donations. The profits, such as they are, are all ploughed back into the company.

"But in governance terms it means that the musicians have a key role to play. They have the majority of places on the board, they elect the chairman of the company.

"That is one of the unique factors about the organisation."

The orchestra consists of up to 105 playing members "and at any time we're usually running between 95 and 100 actual members. We have a staff of 50 at the moment. That has expanded considerably in the last few years".

Apart from their 70 concerts at the Barbican Centre, where the LSO has residency and as many as 80 days of work abroad, the orchestra's members are heavily involved in educational and community work - much of it at the nearby LSO St Luke's.

The educational and community activity, McDowell says, currently reaches around 35,000 people a year.When asked about what the constraints were, what she struggled to change, McDowell's answer was direct and surprising. "I think we have some of the best and finest musicians in the world in the LSO. I would really, dearly love to see them valued more than they are in financial and monetary terms.

"They know that they're performing to the highest standards. That's why they're in the LSO, that's what they want to do. But I do feel these are some of our most wonderful artists and, personally, I would love to see them valued more than they are." It really does make a difference when the workers own the company.