Project Grant

We will expect to see members of the medical professions attending our concert for the first time because of Dr. Burgdorf's performance. Measured against average March concert attendance figures over the past five years, this concert should attract an increase over the past average. Numbers of audience members attending the conductor chat and interacting with Dr. Burgdorf and other Buffalo Community Orchestra principals after the concert will be witnessed by Buffalo Community Orchestra Board members to be considered as part of the post-concert evaluation. The motivation of young musicians who stay with the Suzuki program long enough to enable them to play orchestral pieces on Buffalo Community Orchestra's level will be gauged by the numbers of students increasing year after year, eventually joining Buffalo Community Orchestra as regular members even by the middle school ages. We expect these student members of Buffalo Community Orchestra to remain steady or grow beyond the 20% level. Buffalo Community Orchestra membership is a time and energy commitment for them beyond their involvement in school orchestras, but it launches them into adult and lifetime music, which is a goal of Buffalo Community Orchestra.Audience numbers exceeding 350 and ticket sales of at least $1900 will reflect how well our publicity has reached out into nearby communities; this figure is derived from past March ticket sale records, especially for 2009, when Dr. Burgdorf last performed. We will hope to see new faces from our large medical community (practitioners and patients) as well as increased student attendance. This will be evident in scanning the audience and at the post-concert reception, where our music leaders and board members will directly solicit feedback on our performance of this music. These figures and impressions will be analyzed at the post-concert board meeting. Involvement of at least one dozen advanced Suzuki string students and their parents participating on stage for the Strauss waltz portion of the concert will indicate the on-going strength of our partnership with the Montrose Suzuki Strings program, to which we devote two of our five concerts annually. The posters, conductor chat, radio talk, concert comments, and post-concert reception will all highlight music as a way to 'travel' to the picturesque Danube region and the variety of countries and cultures connected by the river itself. We will evaluate the enthusiasm of the audience in its applause and in qualitative comments from those who listen to the radio interviews, who ask questions at the Conductor Chat, and who speak with Buffalo Community Orchestra musicians in the post-concert reception. These comments will be discussed at the post-concert Buffalo Community Orchestra board meeting.