20-Year Prospect
We're not going to lie to you. It doesn't look good.
Not so many people want to go to the symphony anymore. Blame iPods, video games, or herds of hungry bears, but tickets prices are only recouping 30% of an orchestra's budget lately (source).
So how do they make money? With endowments, which, we know is a word you only see on certain kinds of commercials (source). In this case, it's referring to rich people giving some scratch so the orchestra can stay afloat. It's how things were done in Mozart's day...but before you get too excited about that, remember that everyone was running around in powdered wigs looking like they were being attacked by flying pomeranians.
Not only that, but the first thing getting cut out of a patron's budget when the economy turns is the orchestra. That patron has an iPod too. If he wants to listen to some Vivaldi, he doesn't need a hundred strangers playing it at him. Orchestras, and conductors, do not appear to be long for this world. Not in as widespread a distribution as they currently do at least. They'll still exist in twenty years, but there will be fewer of them; a trend that shows no signs of slowing down.