Each summer, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra embarks on a thorough Strategic Planning exercise. One of the topics that comes up on a regular basis is the manner through which we should serve the community. The ESO is not unique in this discussion. I assume every well run organization, symphonic or not, non or for-profit, must remain clear on its relevancy. I find the subject fascinating.

During our discussions, some of the smartest members of the Strategic Planning committee argue that serving our community means attracting members of the full demographic into our concerts. Some feel that we should bring Hispanic, African-American, Asian, wealthy, poor, folk with advance degrees, and those without college education to our classic concerts. Others believe that we need to program special concerts to serve specific demographics that they believe are unlikely to attend our current offerings.

These arguments make sense. Depending on what numbers I hear bantered about, only 3 – 10% of the general population will attend symphonic concerts on a regular basis and some of our Board members fear our organization will have a difficult future if we do not serve a larger percentage. They are also worried that the population is shifting away from the Eurocentric audience we have traditionally served. Finally, they worry that the classic audience is getting older and that not serving a younger audience will doom us in the future.

When I think of how we can best serve our community, I refer to Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. In his book, Collins studies seven constants experienced by 11 companies that successfully transitioned from long-term mediocrity to long-term greatness. One of these constants is that each of the companies had what he calls a Hedgehog Concept. Simply put, the Hedgehog Concept is the discipline to determine a single goal that balances what you are deeply passionate about, what drives your economic engine, and what you can be the best in the world at.

If the Elgin Symphony Orchestra is going to focus on serving our community, I think we need to ask ourselves how we can serve our community in a way that is better than anyone else in the world. I do not think we can serve non-Eurocentric audiences better than anyone in the world.

Chicago Sinfonietta has a greater passion for this than any symphony I know of, and is located in the heart of a major city with a huge, wealthy, well educated, multi-cultural audience. They have a greater passion, and greater access to audience and resources to succeed here than the ESO does. I do not think we can serve younger audiences better than anyone in the world.

Orchestra X, who saw incredible success around the turn of the millennium, had the passion and the young audience of Houston to succeed better than anyone else on that front. The Grant Park Music Festival’s free concerts can better serve access than we can.

I do not think the ESO can try to be the best interpreter of Wagner (this might belong to the Berlin Philharmonic) or American music (this might belong to the San Francisco Symphony). So what can we do better than anyone else in the world? The Elgin Symphony Orchestra can bring educated and upper income people into downtown Elgin better than anyone else in the world, and this is a service to our community needs.

Elgin is an incredible city. During the decade I have lived here, the city has experienced a renaissance unlike most ever see, and it clearly is just getting started. Unfortunately twenty years ago, Elgin was experiencing tougher times; and perception lags reality. Of the city’ many tools, we are its most effective at changing who populates its downtown. Elgin has three entities that bring significant numbers of outsiders into our downtown area on a regular basis: the Grand Victoria Casino, the private schools, and the Elgin Symphony Orchestra.

By far, the Grand Victoria brings the most people in on an annual basis, but the median income is the lowest of the three organizations. The private schools bring in a high income demographic on a regular basis, but their numbers of people affected are relatively low and their families do not spend a lot of time in our downtown.

The Elgin Symphony Orchestra brings 55,000 people into downtown Elgin each year, and assures that they have an enjoyable time; with the result that the vast majority want to come back. By clarifying our goal of serving our community through bringing educated and upper income people into downtown Elgin, we achieve the Hedgehog Concept. We are serving Elgin in the way it feels the greatest impact, we are doing what we can do better than anyone in the world, the people we are serving provide the economics we need to propagate our future service and building downtown Elgin is what we are passionate about.

How an orchestra should serve its community is not an easy question. I believe the ESO should focus on bringing educated and upper income people into downtown Elgin, but that does not mean that the Elgin Symphony Orchestra can forget broadening our constituency or serving our young – and we have (and must have) a number of highly successful strategies in these areas.

Chicago Sinfonietta, Grant Park Music Festival and Orchestra X have clear and effective ways of serving their communities that work well for them. One day, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra might find a better way to serve Elgin, or might define our community in a way that changes how we serve. In the meantime, we will need to regroup once a year and have a deep discussion on the subject to be sure we agree that we are on the right track.