Jacksonville's Classical Music Scene

I think some cities got overlooked big time! The Jacksonville (Fla.) Symphony Orchestra is celebrating its 60th anniversary season and has the only true symphony hall in the state (Jacoby Hall at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts) and has hosted some of the most renowed artists in the field. Also, Jacksonville is home to the Ritz Chamber Players, the nation's first African-American chamber music ensemble who travel the world increasing awareness of classical music composed by A... Read More

classical music

Don't know how Detroit could possibly rank lower than Las Vegas, not to mention any other city that ranks less than number 20. Certainly Detroit is unbelievably and undeniably weak in much of its lifestyle offerings, but classical music is very strong and alive in Detroit. Its chamber music programming is amazing, as most certainly is its symphony, now led by Leonard Slatkin. And, when you add Ann Arbor to the mix, the area is absolutely no less than worldclass.

How were these ranki... Read More

Methodology

Keep the comments coming! Great insight. You can view our methodology here:
http://www.travelandleisure.com/afc/2009/methodology/

Pittsburgh and Classical Music

When (undisclosed) evaluation criteria omit Pittsburgh as one of the top cities for classical music, you know something's wrong. By any criteria (e.g., Gramophone Magazine), the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is one of the top 5 -10 orchestras in the United States. Moreover, the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society is similarly ranked as one of the best chamber music presenters in the U.S. If Travel and Leisure wishes to have any credibility on this matter, it ought to devise and disclose evalu... Read More

Based on WHAT criteria

These rankings seem very arbitrary - the magazine needs to explain its methodology and how it surveyed to come up with these results. I know many of these cities well, but I know San Diego very well and to put it so low on the list, when the city has the largest concentration of outstanding museums in one location (in Balboa Park), and has the great Museum of Contemporary Art that has been on many must-see lists for tourists for decades... Well, it is hard to see how Providence, RI, can beat... Read More

Major questions...

Really not clear what the methodology is here. Having spent about thirty years of my career working in the arts in NYC, a good part of it in theatre, and traveled and visited the arts communities in almost all of the cities listed, and now being based in Philadelphia, I find the rankings totally perplexing. Obviously my special interest now is Philadelphia and it is ranked WAY too low for the size and vibrancy of the theatre scene here. According to Actors Equity Association, Philly has the f... Read More

Criteria needs to included

As the keeper of South Florida's Theatre Scene weblog, and a former resident of Philadelphia, I'm a little shocked to see the ratings. That might be because you're looking at the city limits of Miami, and not the actual metropolitan area of which it is a part. My point echoes Qvetch; regional theatre can't be defined by the borders of a single city, it is contiguous with the sprawl that surrounds a major city. There really isn't a "Miami." It's "South Florida."

What were the criteria?

A list such as this is meaningless unless accompanied by the criteria that were used in its selection. Was it based on the number of local theatres ? If so, was that criterion broken down by professional status (Equity/non-Equity/amateur)? Was the total number of theatre seats taken into consideration? Was it based on total attendance, and, if so, was that broken down by professional status as well?

I agree that some of the placements seem...odd.

Theatre rankings

To place Washington DC area theatre at the same level as Philadelphia and below Providence is plain wrong. If one considers DC as including Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, MD, one is including over 80 theatres, many of them with Equity contracts, including Arena Stage, The Shakespeare Company, Studio Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Signature Theatre..... There is no sanity placing that DC Metro area 9th. Indeed, I would suggest that it is more fitting under any criteria not less than 4th,... Read More