Nearly a third of CSO main series concerts were sold out or exceeded 95% capacity; half reached 87% capacity. The CSO's 2006-07 season included over 230 musical events, including 155 CSO concerts, and a number of new media initiatives and collaborations.
Bernard Haitink and Pierre Boulez finished their inaugural seasons as principal conductor and conductor emeritus, respectively; an in-house record label, CSO Resound, was started; the orchestra returned to radio through the BP Chicago Symphony Orchestra Radio Broadcast Series and offered a free video download of its Beyond the Scores presentation of Bart‹k's The Miraculous Mandarin
CSO's Beyond the Scores series provides concert-goers with an examination of a single work through visuals, narrations and live performance examples, touching on its context in history and the composer's oeuvre; each event ends with a performance of the entire work. Subscriptions to the series jumped 84% over 2005-06.
Other figures surpassing those from last year abound. Net and total assets grew 13 and 7 percent to $296 million and $465 million, respectively; the endowment rose 15 percent to $233 million. The orchestra's operating expenses increased two percent, and 82% percent of its operating budget was allocated to concerts, programs, and educational and community activities.
The orchestra's ongoing music director search could also be over within half a year, CSO Association chairman William A. Osborn told Andrew Patner for the Chicago Sun-Times. "We'd like to do it sooner rather than later," he said
