The city of Detroit may be in bankruptcy, but the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is back in the black. The symphony planned to disclose on Thursday that it had balanced its budget for the first time since 2007. The orchestra ended the 2013 fiscal year with a small surplus after raising $18.9 million in contributions, a 43 percent increase over the year before. Ticket revenue rose to $6.26 million as the orchestra sold more subscriptions, it said.
The newly released figures suggested that the orchestra is recovering from a corrosive six-month strike that ended in 2011. The orchestra said it had more than 10,000 donors again for the first time in a decade, and that its Beethoven festival last February set a new record for classical ticket sales in the Max M. Fisher Music Center, which opened in 2003. But its biggest growth was online: the orchestra said the audience for its Live from Orchestra Hall webcasts grew to 300,000 viewers.
