Operating Support
ACHF Arts Access
The goal of the Minnesota Sinfonia is for people of all ages, ethnicities, and abilities to be able to participate as audience members, students, and/or artists with the Sinfonia. The measureable outcomes that we intend to achieve are to increase the numbers of audience members across the state, as well as in the metropolitan area. The evaluation plan was to survey anonymously at several Sinfonia events. The Sinfonia surveyed audiences at two winter concerts, nineteen Music in the School Partners and four of eight outstate venues. The surveys confirmed that the Sinfonia was meeting its goals of having many differing segments of the population participating in the arts, and that approximately 2,500 audience members were added outstate. Audience sizes are estimates based on hall capacities and input from hosts. Surveys report a wide diversity in audience makeup: 1) over 30% have household incomes below $35,000, 2) over 30% attend few other professional arts events, 3) audiences come from across the metro, 4) many children attend (no numbers, but visual counts have put the number at some venues close to 30%), 5) rural audiences were made up of over 65% with household incomes below $35,000, 6) 75% attend fewer than two professional orchestra concerts. 2: The Sinfonia would also like to increase the numbers of participating students, artists, and audience members of all ages, ethnicities, income levels, and abilities. The evaluation plan included surveys, visuals, and actual counts. Survey outcomes are listed above. The Sinfonia was able to accurately count the number of students in our contests and youth outreach week activities. They remained quite constant with last years numbers, increasing only slightly (by 5-6 participants). The count of students participating in Music in the Schools is an approximation from the participating partner schools, and fairly accurate. The accurate count of artists was listed in the preceding question, also up a modest amount. The count and makeup of audience members is from our surveys and our visual approximations. We know this by how many seats there are per venue and how big of a percentage of those seats are filled, as well as the ages, ethnicities and income levels from our extensive surveys.
Outcomes achieved were: 1) People of all ages, ethnicities and abilities were able to participate as audience members, students, or artists with the Sinfonia. Audiences numbers either increased or remained constant with past years. 2) Music in the Schools had over 10,000 participants. 3) Free, professional, public concerts were performed in a variety of metropolitan neighborhood settings and generally served specific communities. The communities included East St Paul, North Minneapolis, Eagan, Minneapolis and St Paul inner cities and other areas. 4) The region's talented music students were served by two contests and performances as part of the Youth Outreach Week with the Sinfonia. 5) Touring to rural Minnesota introduced the Sinfonia to audiences, most of which (as determined by anonymous surveys) do not attend concerts by the state's other professional orchestras. 6) All Sinfonia programs either gained participating members or retained the same numbers of audience members. 2: The Sinfonia did meet most of the expectations for increasing the numbers of participants. The actual outcomes were as follows: 1) Student participation was up from last year, but slightly below our goal of 18,000, with approximately 10,500 participants in our Music in the Schools program, 800 through our summer children's concert and 5,000 through our public concerts, along with 70 in our youth contests and youth outreach week, for an approximate total of 16,370. 2) The number of artists participating was about as we anticipated, 95, including the students performing with the Sinfonia during youth outreach week. 3) The number of audience members was approximately 24-26,000 according to our surveys and estimates by our staff and by the staffs of our partner organizations. We felt that the numbers of audience members increased significantly, especially when factoring in the touring that we did.
Other
local or private