With dismal news floating out of orchestral offices across North America, aren’t there any major orchestras out there that can offer a proven strategy for the future? The answer, says William Littler, is yes, and one need look no further than the San Francisco Symphony. In the early 1990s, the orchestra found itself in an artistic rut, a fiscal mess, and a managerial malaise. Fifteen years later, the SFS is a model of both financial sanity and artistic integrity, and the ensemble is now regularly grouped together in print with the traditional “Big Five” orchestras. There were no miracles in San Francisco, just hard work by dedicated individuals in all parts of the organization, and there’s no reason why other orchestras can’t follow the same model.