Green Bay Symphony Orchestra writes ‘coda’ on 100-year history

There was a major announcement Friday on the local performing arts scene: The Green Bay Symphony Orchestra will be calling it quits after 100 years of performance. The GBSO is headquartered at the Weidner Center on the UW-Green Bay campus. The orchestra’s board of directors and Executive Director Dan Linssen released a statement saying that the 2014-15 season will be the last. “It was a very difficult decision to make,” Linssen said. “However, we cannot continue offering high quality, professional performances not knowing from concert to concert if we’ll be able to cover our costs.” The Symphony cited insufficient grants and donations, declining ticket sales and increasing costs. The community still has a volunteer, grass-roots orchestra in the Civic Symphony of Green Bay, which grew out of a split with the GBSO in the 1990s when the latter moved to become a fully professional orchestra and many local amateur players were left out. For the full GBSO news release, http://greenbaysymphony.org/.