The Oregon Symphony has announced its concert schedule for the 2025-2026 season, and the big thing that patrons will notice is that the orchestra will no longer perform on Monday nights as part of its classical concert series. Instead, six of the most popular concert offerings will have a three-night sequence that will be Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

The new season starts Sept. 16 with violin star Joshua Bell joining the orchestra for a performance of Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto, plus the orchestra’s renditions of Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1 and Sravinsky’s The Firebird Suite.

To find out more about the schedule change, I talked with Oregon Symphony’s president and CEO, Isaac Thompson, who took over the administrative helm of the organization in 2023. Before moving West, Thompson was managing director of the New York Philharmonic, and director of artistic administration for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and the Cincinnati May Festival. He also serves on the board of the League of American Orchestras.

I met in his office at the orchestra’s new headquarters on Southwest Sixth Avenue in downtown Portland. Here is our conversation, which has been edited for flow:

Oregon Arts Watch: I know that Monday nights have had a low attendance, but tell us more about the reasoning behind the new schedule.

Isaac Thompson: One result of the pandemic is that consumer habits have changed across the board in every industry. Arts and culture are not immune to those changes. Before the pandemic, consumers bought packages. We’ve found that there has been a shift to last-minute purchases and a desire for more flexibility. Another dynamic of Portland is that Monday night is not the most vibrant night of the week. We’ve seen some pretty strong sales on weekend concerts, but Monday has been a struggle.

Of course, we have a lot of dedicated subscribers who have been coming on Monday nights. So we wanted to develop a strategy that is as thoughtful as possible. But we are moving away from Monday nights. That allows us to have a little flexibility for experimentation.

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The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall is a fairly large venue with almost 2,800 seats. That presents a challenge for three-night series of classical concerts. We are reducing that to six concerts and switching Monday to Thursday night. The Salem series on Friday nights remains the same.

OAW: Who owns and operates the Schnitz?

IT: The Schnitz is owned by the city but operated by Portland’5 Centers for the Arts, which is an entity of Metro, the regional government. So we are renting the Schnitz. That’s a challenge for us. There is recognition among many stakeholders that this structure is not optimum. The city formed a workgroup in January to look at this model and what it might become potentially. The Symphony is very much engaged in those conversations and I am looking forward to them.

When I worked at the New York Philharmonic, I worked with the team that spearheaded the renovation of David Geffen Hall. The project took a 2,700-seat hall down to 2,100 seats. Even in a market like New York City, 2,100 seats is the sweet spot in terms of market capacity and acoustics.

OAW: Does the new schedule mean that the orchestra is downsizing?

IT: There is no downsizing of the orchestra involved. We have a collective bargaining agreement with our musicians that defines the contract for a period of time. We are committed to offering a variety of programs and a robust schedule. We are seeing a rebound in attendance this season. The numbers are higher than the previous season, and those were higher than the season before it. We are in a much better place than we were coming out of the pandemic.

There is also an alignment regarding issues about the city’s downtown. We are at a point now where we can turn the corner.

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We are looking for ways to double down on our community impact. It’s a critical part of our mission. Many of the musicians really want to be engaged outside the concert hall and in other facets of our community. Over the past year or so we have developed a tremendous amount of community partners and partnerships with many organizations. We have a robust relationship with many schools.

Music and arts education continue to decline – orchestras and other cultural institutions in town really fill a void by providing access to music education, arts, and culture to young people. We take this seriously. It’s critical to our mission. It cultivates audiences for the future. We bus in a concert hall full of young kids – here in Portland and in Salem. It’s great and a wonderful to experience.

OAW: Many years ago, the orchestra got into buses and did a statewide tour, playing in towns like Pendleton. Would that be possible in the future?

IT: We would love to take a tour across the state! We are the Oregon Symphony and have a statewide mandate. It would be great to do a statewide tour.

OAW: What is your job like?

IT: This job is all about relationships. I meet and talk with a lot of people in the community and with our internal stakeholders. Oversee the business and artistic side of the organization.  I am a cheerleader for the orchestra. I have to tell our story to potential funders, to existing funders, to civic leaders. I’m highly engaged with city politics, and Metro, since Metro has an operational role in our venue. When the orchestra is rehearsing, and we have guest artists in town, I like to stop by the hall, and talk with the guests who are coming in. Every day is different but it is rooted in relationships and building relationships for the orchestra.

We have 77 full-time musicians. We have a staff of around 50 full-time staff members. It’s a robust operation. We raise money, put on concerts, sell tickets, and other business functions that result in revenue. It’s a complex business – and it is rooted in relationships in the community. My role is outward facing.

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We talk with the state. Last year the State of Oregon passed a funding bill for the arts that included capital projects and also funding for the anchor arts organizations and also a grant program for smaller arts organizations. There is a similar bill that is under consideration right now. We continue to be engaged with political leaders and partners in Salem.

OAW: Do you have to spend a lot of time looking at Excel spreadsheets?

IT: I do have to look at budget forecasts. I work with a terrific staff who have terrific areas of expertise. We also have to be ready to pivot when we can to optimize ourselves for success. It’s a fascinating role and job to run a symphony orchestra. It’s complicated and exciting. Sometimes it is nerve-wracking. But the end results – when I go to a concert and I hear this amazing orchestra play at such a high level – that makes everything so gratifying.

OAW: What is the Oregon Symphony’s operating budget?

IT: The operating budget is $24 million. Our only sources of revenue are earned revenue from ticket sales, contributed revenue on an annual basis. We have a very small endowment compared to other Tier One orchestras. So anything outside our control – whether it’s a pandemic, a seismic event, downtown safety, or something else – becomes a real critical challenge for us.

We are fully committed to making sure that downtown Portland comes back. We drive a lot of traffic to downtown. You can feel that on nights when a concert is happening versus nights when that is not happening – the energy downtown is different. Restaurants, bars, parking garages are affected in a positive way when we are performing. So the economic impact is important to the city.

OAW: In addition to concerts, what other new concert opportunities will the orchestra offer?

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IT: We will have a couple of one-hour concerts with no intermission on Friday nights that start at 6:30 pm. One is Symphony-in-60. Hopefully this will be a terrific entry for new audiences and people who work downtown. Another is Naked Classics – I would call it a content-rich experience where the audience gets a look under the hood of a piece of music with a host – someone with whom our Music Director David Danzmayr has worked with previously – who has a compelling program. He talks about the piece with excerpts and then it is played all the way through – with no intermission.

My philosophy is to try new things. So we will see if it resonates with newer audiences.

OAW: Looking at the season, there’s a lot of wonderful artists coming. It’s great to see esperanza spalding, Christine Goerke, Delyana Lazarova, and so many others in the lineup. And a special concert with Danill Trifonov and the orchestra. Wow!

IT: Danill was an artist-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic when I was there.  He is one of the great poetic and virtuosic pianists on the scene. Lots of good things, and we will end the season with a percussion festival, featuring Andy Akiho and Colin Currie, that we are calling Bang It!