Chad's Big Haul
Fiscal 2025 was a record year for the BSO treasury
July 15, 2026. The Boston Symphony Orchestra filed its Form 990 with the IRS today. At 4:55 p.m., BSO Public Relations sent me a copy. As I expected, in the fiscal year ending last August 31, the BSO booked $155 million in revenue, a new record, and a surplus of $27 million, the largest since the James Levine era. The endowment, at $603 million, hit a new high despite the dead weight of $120 million in illiquid VC and PE investments.
The unrestricted endowment hit $66 million. The Board can spend that money at any time and for any purpose, so I don’t want to hear any more pearl-clutching about “deferred maintenance.”
In short, last September the BSO Board sat on the largest pile of wealth in the history of the organization. You can discard any notion that they fired Andris Nelsons because they were concerned about the fiscal health of the orchestra.
Remember: on March 23, the BSO said this:
According to tax documents … the orchestra lost $6.6 million during the fiscal year ending in August 2024…Addressing these existential issues requires clear alignment and shared responsibility among all institutional leaders on a collective path forward.
The BSO wrote that letter six months after closing the books on fiscal 2025. They knew it was bullshit when they wrote it.
The 990 includes information about highly compensated individuals. Some people might indulge in cheap shots over Chad Smith’s salary of $1,097,476, his bonus of $210,000, and his other compensation, which adds up to $1,371,354, but I would never stoop to that level.
The BSO also filed a Form PC and audited financial statements with the Massachusetts Attorney General. However, they did not respond to multiple requests to share the audited financials, and instead referred me to the Attorney General’s office. The AG takes forever to post the financials, which is why ethical nonprofits share the reports directly with the public.
It’s ironic that the BSO won’t share the audited financials. In an internal memo, the BSO CFO complained that since I used data from the 990s, I was misleading people with an overly rosy picture of the BSO’s financial position. She’s mistaken about that; tax accounting is more conservative than GAAP accounting.
The accounting details aren’t the point. It’s disingenuous for the BSO to claim that tax records paint an incomplete picture while refusing to share the GAAP financials. I will be more than happy to share information from the audited financials when I get my hands on them.
Once again, a piercing analysis that documents both the ineptitude of the BSO’s very well paid CEO Chad Smith and his unfortunate habit of lying.
Thanks, Mr. Dinsmore.
So if Smith is so inept that he cannot make sense of his own budget, then by extension the person who hired him is equally inept for paying him $1.3 million, Barbara Hostetter.
Isn’t it time for the BSO Trustees to face the obvious that the emperor has no clothes?
"They knew it was bullshit when they wrote it" says it all. And you are of course correct that the bulk of the recent fundraising came from BH - one hand washing the other.
I am fervently hoping that the lawn parties out at Tanglewood are buzzing and that the fall will bring some backbone to the Board.