Deborah Borda On Leaving LA And On Saving The NEA

Here’s the great irony: the budget of the Los Angeles Philharmonic is now about $120 million a year. The total amount of money we get from the National Endowment for the Arts is about $150,000. So it’s less than one percent of our budget. So we — the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic — both of these orchestras will move ahead because that’s about the level that big orchestras receive from the NEA. Who is going to be terribly hurt are the smaller organizations in this city and especially in rural America.