Pay-to-Play: Rich People Are Hiring Themselves Orchestras To Conduct

On February 18, the Deutsch-Romantisches Orchester (DRO) performed at Berlin's Funkhaus, a converted radio center. The concert featured a five-course banquet and was led by Marina Quasha, a 20-year-old conductor with limited experience. Quasha, who started conducting in 2022 after developing tendinitis, funded the event through anonymous donors from her father Alan Quasha's circle. Alan Quasha is a secretive billionaire whose firm Quadrant Management was linked to a controversial blood-filtering therapy. The concert cost over $290,000, exceeding the annual budgets of 77% of US orchestras. Quasha plans to build a concert hall for €2 million, though timelines have shifted from September 2025 to 2030-2031. The DRO is part of a trend where wealthy individuals pay for orchestral experiences, including Alexey Shor (a former mathematician whose works are performed globally) and Susan Lim (a surgeon who hired the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra). In June, Mandle Cheung paid $400,000 to conduct the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Richard Grenell led the National Symphony Orchestra in a fundraising stunt. The article criticizes how pay-to-play undermines meritocracy in classical music, especially as public funding faces cuts—Berlin saw 12% cultural budget cuts in 2025.