Ryan Fleur was promoted Wednesday to president and CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts, leading an institution that he has worked for since 2012.
Fleur had been interim president since January, when Matias Tarnopolsky left to head the New York Philharmonic. Fleur said he will concentrate on trying to fill seats for the roughly 20% of capacity that is not being regularly sold.
“I also want to aggressively make our venues available to both community groups and education groups that might not otherwise realize that these spaces are open to them,” he said. “I want every Philadelphia school student, K (kindergarten) through 12 to walk through our doors at least three times in their formative years, whether it’s coming to a Philadelphia Orchestra open rehearsal or a school concert or to our jazz for freedom program, which connects the history of jazz with the civil rights movement. ”
Now 53, Fleur was president and CEO of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra from 2003-12, when he became Philadelphia’s executive director of orchestra advancement. He also served as interim president in 2018 after Allison Vulgamore left to run the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and before Tarnopolsky started in Philadelphia.
Fleur had been Philadelphia’s executive director since 2021, the year the orchestra merged with the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the orchestra’s home. The institution rebranded as Ensemble Arts Philly last year.
Revenue for the 2023-24 season was $132.6 million, of which 38% was ticket sales, 24% from ancillary streams such as parking and rentals and 38% from contributions and endowment. Capacity for all presentations was 76% in 2023-24, up from 69% in 2022-23. This season is on track for 77%.
“We are seeing audiences now at levels slightly higher than before the pandemic,” he said. “It’s no longer predominantly subscribers. There are a lot of single-ticket buyers. One of the benefits of the merger is that we have a very large database through many genres to cross-market to. We see people attending not just Broadway (shows), but they’ll come to an orchestra classical performance and they’ll come to a jazz performance.”
The orchestra’s contract with Local 77 of the American Federation of Musicians expires in September 2026.
