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The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra easily blows the Minneapolis Symphony out of the water (does Minneapolis even have a symphony?). I'm not saying that Minneapolis isn't very strong in the arts because it most certainly is, but St. Louis can definitely hold its own. Not sure if botanical gardens qualify as "arts/museums" but the Missouri Botanical Garden is acclaimed as one of the top 5 in the world, and our zoo crushes the Minneapolis Zoo like an elephant stomping on a cockroach!
In terms of quality and reputation, US symphony orchestras are a lot like sports teams: they vary from time to time, depending upon the current music director/coach, recording contracts/TV contracts, and the availability of star players. The St Louis Symphony was among the world's best in the late eighties/early nineties. They made numerous highly-acclaimed recordings under Leonard Slatkin. That ensemble is still very good, however, it is not in the same league as the current Minnesota Orchestra (labor disputes aside).
The Minneapolis Symphony/Minnesota Orchestra is universally acclaimed via it's history of recordings which date back to the 1920's--including the first American recording of Mahler's First Symphony, the world's first complete recording of that composer's Second Symphony (both works are today in the standard repertoire of orchestras worldwide), and the first million-selling classical recording in history (Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, et al. under Antal Dorati). Beyond that, MSP is one of two cities in the country with two major orchestras, The Minnesota Orchestra and the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. The other is NY. In spite of the current lockouts, both ensembles are world class and routinely draw applicants from the the highest international pool of instrumentalists. MSP is also one of the country's most prominent cities for classical choral ensembles.
The St Louis Art Museum is pretty close to The Minneapolis Institute of Arts in both scope an quality. However, no city between the two coasts can even come close to matching-up with The Walker Art Center in terms of modern art museums. And no museum in the country is as highly-respected in terms of interdisciplinary arts than is the walker. The adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is the largest urban sculpture garden in the country.
There are two cities in the country, each which has had three different theaters (including the Guthrie) to have won Regional Tony Awards: Chicago and Minneapolis. The massive numbers of theaters in the metro make MSP the third largest live theater market in the country (trailing only NY and CHI)--that is in raw numbers, not per capita. The Minneapolis Children's Theater is the largest children's theater in North America. In the world, only London has a larger one.
According to Dance USA; only NY, SF, and CHI are more important centers of dance in The United States. There are fourteen dance companies in MSP with budgets in excess of $100,000--for comparison, Atlanta and Dallas each have two such companies.
If we move on to pop culture, Minneapolis has one of the most vital and productive indie music scenes in the country, not to mention the continuing influences of Prince and "The Minneapolis Sound".
St Louis is a wonderful city. It matches up with Minneapolis in some ways--perhaps, even exceeds it in others. But it's foolish trying to take on Minneapolis in what is, arguably, its strongest set of urban amenities.
I was with you till you said that. HUH? KC has over 2 million people (2.1 in MSA and 2.6 within sixty miles of downtown, Lawrence etc). It's a large, relatively populated region with an urbanized population of like 1.6 million and is a top 30 city. The population of the Kansas side suburbs alone rivals that of the entire metro areas of Baton Rouge or El Paso and I don't think they are even comparable when it comes to culture, sports, museums, arts etc.
KC is similar to Portland OR in size and much closer to St Louis than Baton Rouge. As I mentioned before, you take away St Paul and KC and easily hangs with Minneapolis as well. So not sure I get your post. I think you may need to see more of KC than the drive in from I-35 through Liberty (which is not a very impressvie entryway to the metro)
Again, I really Like KC. However, I'm merely talking here about metro population numbers.
Based upon 2011 estimates of metro area populations
MSP=3,318,486
KC=2,052,676
Baton Rouge=808,242
Difference between MSP and KC=1,265,810
Difference between KC and BR= 1,244,433
Again, I really Like KC. However, I'm merely talking here about metro population numbers.
Based upon 2011 estimates of metro area populations
MSP=3,318,486
KC=2,052,676
Baton Rouge=808,242
Difference between MSP and KC=1,265,810
Difference between KC and BR= 1,244,433
Illogical
So you can say the same about MSP and say Dallas Fort Worth vs Green Bay.
DFW=6,526,548
MSP=3,318,486
Green Bay= 282,599
Difference between DFW and MSP 3,208,062
Difference between MSP and GB= 3,035,887
MSP is closer to Green Bay than Dallas.
Again, illogical. What a waste of time to even be discussing this. Cities reach certain levels and then as they get bigger, they don't add a proportionate amount of "culture" are amenities or attractions. Typically they add a lot more suburban strip malls and subdivisions than museums. A metro of 2 million (KC) will be much more comparable in nearly every aspect to MSP, or even bigger cities, than a city like Baton Rouge or El Paso.
I honestly woud put MSP above DFW, despite the 3 million people living in suburbs difference between the areas. Very similar situation to KC vs MSP (although I prefer MSP over KC). Just trying to give KC some respect here...
So you can say the same about MSP and say DFW vs Green Bay.
DFW=6,526,548
MSP=3,318,486
Green Bay= 282,599
Difference between DFW and MSP 3,208,062
Difference between MSP and BR= 3,035,887
MSP is closer to Green Bay than Dallas.
Again, illogical. What a waste of time to even be discussing this. Cities reach certain levels and then as they get bigger, they don't add a proportionate amount of "culture" are amenities or attractions. Typically they add a lot more suburban strip malls and subdivisions than museums. A metro of 2 million (KC) will be much more comparable in nearly every aspect to MSP, or even bigger cities, than a city like Baton Rouge or El Paso.
I honestly woud put MSP above DFW, despite the 3 million people living in suburbs difference between the areas. Very similar situation to KC vs MSP (although I prefer MSP over KC). Just trying to give KC some respect here...
Yes, if you were making the same statement as I made it would be logical to point out that MSP is closer to Green Bay than to DFW.
Here is the portion of my original post quoted by you--note the bolding:
Quote:
However, putting it into perspective by looking just at metro population, Kansas City is closer to El Paso or Baton Rouge than it is to Minneapolis.
It's just math. It doesn't relate to the quality or importance of a city, nor did I suggest that it did.
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra easily blows the Minneapolis Symphony out of the water (does Minneapolis even have a symphony?). I'm not saying that Minneapolis isn't very strong in the arts because it most certainly is, but St. Louis can definitely hold its own. Not sure if botanical gardens qualify as "arts/museums" but the Missouri Botanical Garden is acclaimed as one of the top 5 in the world, and our zoo crushes the Minneapolis Zoo like an elephant stomping on a cockroach!
Don't make a statement like that if you don't even know the information in the first place... The Minnesota Orchestra, which you didn't know existed, is much larger, higher rated, and world renown than the St. Louis Symphony, and has been rated as one of the best in the world many times. And that's a real fact.Not a made up one. I compare what you said to me saying "Minneapolis- St. Paul international airport is waaaaaayyyy better than New York City International Airport."
There are the Big Five orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra. An updated "best" list includes, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra (originally the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra), and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.
BTW, the Minnesota Orchestra has an endowment of $140 million - the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's endowment is $22 million.
Another point in terms of the hierarchy of American orchestras is that a lot of people misunderstand the idea of "The Big Five" US orchestras. The term was coined in the late fifties, and used often into the seventies. No one in the classical music world ever took it seriously as a necessary measure of playing quality. It largely represented the marketing reach of the two gargantuan American classical record labels of the era (Columbia and RCA). NY and CLE were affiliated with Columbia, while BOS and CHI were mainly connected to RCA. The Philadelphia Orchestra actually moved from Columbia to RCA during those years. Because these two record labels dominated the distribution of classical recordings, those five orchestras reaped the benefits-both in fame and earnings. Mercury was a distant third in classical distribution into the mid-sixties, but was a very innovative label in regards to recording engineering. They had Minneapolis and Detroit as their two primary orchestras.
Many would argue that a couple of the traditional "Big Five" are no longer among the top ten best in the country. If you were to take the top twenty US orchestras, you'd probably find that most of them rotate in to and out of the top ten in any given five year period.
Don't make a statement like that if you don't even know the information in the first place... The Minnesota Orchestra, which you didn't know existed, is much larger, higher rated, and world renown than the St. Louis Symphony, and has been rated as one of the best in the world many times. And that's a real fact.Not a made up one. I compare what you said to me saying "Minneapolis- St. Paul international airport is waaaaaayyyy better than New York City International Airport."
the exact same thing could be said of the st. louis symphony orchestra. post your source please.
because according to the foremost authority on classical music, the saint louis symphony orchestra outranks the minnesota orchestra:
if you have credible sources that say otherwise, this would be the place to post them.
I'm taking it that you do realize that this list comes from one Japanese music critic, and was created in 1993 (published in 1994). There's really nothing wrong with that--again, orchestral quality fluxes constantly, and twenty years is a long time in the classical music world. I'm in total agreement. In 1994, The St Louis Symphony Orchestra was better than the Minnesota Orchestra. In fact, during those years STL was often ranked second in the US (behind Chicago).
Ranking orchestras is a hugely subjective process. Few American critics would take on that task. Even the list you linked merely places orchestras in tiers (as of twenty years ago).
Both are excellent orchestras today. However, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the classical industry who would suggest that STL matches, yet alone surpasses the MO today.
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