Editing Ford Foundation (section)

=== Ford Foundation Symphony Program ===
From 1966 through 1976, to encourage the growth and stability of symphony orchestras across the USA and Puerto Rico, the Ford Foundation invested $80.2 million to: (1) improve orchestra artistic quality, (2) strengthen orchestra finances, and (3) raise the income and prestige of the music profession in the U.S.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Philip |first=Hart |title=Orpheus in the New World the symphony orchestra as an American cultural institution-its past, present, and future |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York |year=1973 |isbn=0393021696 |publication-date=1973 |pages=339–347 |language=English}}</ref>  Sixty-one American symphony orchestras participated in the unprecedented ten-year Ford Foundation Symphony Program.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Hart |first=Philip |title=Orpheus in the New World The Symphony Orchestra as an American Cultural institution-its past, present, and future |publisher=W.W.Norton Company, Inc., New York |year=1973 |isbn=0393021696 |publication-date=1973 |pages=512 |language=English}}</ref>  Part of the "Big Bang" of music philanthropy, the Symphony Program represented the single largest gift program ever devised for the arts.<ref name=":13">{{Cite news |last=Henahan |first=Donal |date=10 January 1968 |title=Nation's Orchestras unsettled by Need to Match Ford Grants; Foundation's Gift Plan is Raising Standards, but Some Symphonies Fear Demise if Fund Drives Fail |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/01/10/archives/nations-orchestras-unsettled-by-need-to-match-ford-grants.html |access-date=27 April 2025 |work=New York Times |language=English}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yu |first=Michael Sy |date=May 2017 |title=The Big Bang of Music Patronage in the United States: The National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation |url=https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/77d583c4-cc2a-42ab-ac8f-70ad75b7292b/content |journal=Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences |via=Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard DASH.HARVARD.EDU}}</ref>   The Symphony Program infused cash into orchestra budgets throughout the nation resulting in increased orchestra seasons and musician wages.<ref name=":2" />  Many orchestras, however, could not sustain the economic growth provided by the Symphony Program grant.<ref name=":13" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=26 January 1986 |title=Money Blues Is a Sad Tune Orchestras Know By Heart |url=https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1986/01/26/money-blues-is-a-sad-tune-orchestras-know-by-heart/ |access-date=26 April 2025 |work=Orlando Sentinel}}</ref> According to one author, orchestra managers had to "manufacture" work to sustain the longer season which, in turn, generated "boredom and apathy" among professional symphony musicians.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Horowitz |first=Joseph |title=Classical Music in America A History of its Rise and Fall |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company New York London |year=2005 |isbn=9780393057171 |publication-date=2005 |pages=483–484 |language=English}}</ref>