Buffalo Music: A conversation with Jennifer Barbee, orchestra’s new CEO

By Mike Desmond
(Photo above by Mike Desmond)

On a fine Buffalo August day, the stage of Kleinhans Music Hall was empty of musicians, chairs and instruments and the 2,400 green seats were empty.

Present was Jennifer Barbee, the newly appointed Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra president and chief executive officer.

She formally takes over from Daniel Hart on Sept. 1.

That’s an important date because it’s the first day of the orchestra’s fiscal year, the endless grinding campaign to bring in the millions of dollars which keep Bach or Beethoven or Scott Joplin cascading across those green seats.

Barbee has been with the BPO for 16 years and understands what’s needed. She has served as associate director and director of development since 2016.

“Every year, you start back at zero. You know, we are an organization of people, 80% of our budget goes towards our musicians and our staff and the production of concerts,” she said. “So, it’s not like you don’t just start cutting things when things aren’t going right. So, it’s really our responsibility, as a board and as a team, a management team, to go out there to make sure our community understands how important their support is, above buying a concert ticket.”

The new BPO leader says ticket sales are a large but not dominant part of the financial picture,

“Thirty percent of our revenue comes from ticket sales. The rest comes from, you know, basically fundraising,” she said.

“We’re very lucky with incredible support from Erie County. They are our largest donor. We have a very strong endowment. We have had generous foundations. But, it’s really at the heart, it’s the people of Buffalo.”

“If they can give $10, they give $10 and that’s what it takes.”

The orchestra’s most recent IRS Form 990 reports $13.7 million in revenue, with $4.1 million of that from “concert revenue.”

BPO finances also benefit from endowment revenue, with several endowment accounts, totaling $56.4 million.

The orchestra’s 990 and most recent audit are on the web site.

New numbers will be available sometime after the end of this fiscal year.

While the challenges may be daunting, Barbee brings a lot of experience to the top job. According to the BPO’s release announcing her promotion, Barbee’s accomplishments include leading the $35 million Crescendo Campaign, which helped grow the BPO’s endowment to more than $60 million; supporting the acquisition of the orchestra’s administrative headquarters; establishing the $10 million Next Generation Education Fund; and securing 51 planned gifts totaling more than $10 million. She has helped raise $75 million in annual and operating support and $15 million in government funding and also codirected the $16 million Keeping It Modern campaign benefiting Kleinhans Music Hall.

Barbee has an unusual background for someone on the business side of a cultural organization. She started out dreaming of a musical career as a bassoonist and even went to that dream home of a musician, those summers in Interlochen, Michigan.

“It is humbling when you realize that you’re good, maybe even really good but you’re not good enough,” she said.

Now she works at getting the best music on stage and the best musicians playing to (hopefully) 2,400 filled seats.

“I feel super-blessed that I’ve been able to spend my childhood, my young adulthood and now into my middle age, being surrounded by music all the time,” she continued. “There are so many different ways to make music and there are so many different forms of music. I mean, it’s the penultimate to be on the stage with the Buffalo Philharmonic at Kleinhans Music Hall.”

She helps make it happen, working with Music Director JoAnn Falletta and the members and leaders of the orchestra.

Not only does she have to work to fill the seats, Barbee has to help create the audiences of the future in a world where music programs in so many schools have been cut, the piano in the parlors of far distant days is gone and there is constant competition from so many kinds of music other than classical.

It’s visible at Kleinhans that audience members are aging and, at some concerts, really aging.

For some events that’s less true. Public BPO concerts like the recent performance in North Buffalo filled with people of all ages.

There are also the youth concerts and the more recent movie performances, with some classic movie on the Kleinhans screen and music from the BPO.

This season, it’s “Coco,” on Oct. 3, an animated film Barbee describes as about the Day of the Dead, “It’s about a young girl who has experienced the loss of one of our very important family members and just kind of her journey. And, I think a lot of kids are going to be able sort of to relate to that, and, it’s great music.”  

There’s also “Home Alone” on Nov. 28 and 29 and “How to Train your Dragon” on April 30 of next year.

Barbee says she’s working with her 16-year-old daughter to find appropriate Japanese anime movies and perhaps some videogame music, or perhaps some Broadway music or people who are being talked about.

The new orchestra boss wants to take advantage of all of that interest in music, building on the orchestra and its 73 permanent performers. “We have an extraordinary education committee, as well as team internally, and our musicians are really invested in it and are willing to spend their time with music education,” she said.

Barbee says those musicians work with school kids: “We serve or see over 40,000 students a year and even within the Buffalo public schools.”

That includes kindergarteners, who have joined the first through sixth graders who have long attended youth concerts. “They’re going to have some form of exposure to the orchestra, learning about the players who play the instruments, learning about the repertoire, the composers,” she said.

Barbee continued, “The arts make a well-rounded citizen. It’s important to have different exposure to everything and for our little piece of that puzzle.”

She says her big goal is to fill all those 2,400 seats, for all kinds of music.

“How are we going to create an audience of the future?”

Barbee says she’s seeing more younger people, sometimes reflecting the particular concert, those can be just past 30 or those still in high school.

The most visible sign of the older customers is those Friday AM “coffee concerts,” mostly reflecting people who are available because they are retired.

There are also public outdoor concerts, like the recent one on the vast lawn of North Park Academy in North Buffalo.

The president and executive director says the orchestra has broadened the music it plays, like the movie scores, with around 30% traditional classical music as well as new contemporary classical music.

There are also concessions to the customers, with afternoon showings of those movies with the BPO doing the music.

Barbee says one of the things she wants to happen is for members of the public to realize the orchestra members are their neighbors and that their children go to the same schools, that they’re people they can run into in Wegman’s.

“The dream scenario, the way I look at it is until the day that every seat is filled in Kleinhans, we have our work to do,” she said. “We want to share our musical experiences and those musical moments. It’s all about shared experiences.”