From left, Boston Public Radio host Jim Braude, Keith Lockhart and host Margery Eagan appear during an April 29 broadcast of WGBH’s “Boston Public Radio,” in which Lockhart discussed the financial and organizational turmoil facing the Boston Symphony Orchestra following the announced departure of music director Andris Nelsons.

BOSTON — Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart said the Boston Symphony Orchestra is “living on borrowed time” and has been for years.

In an interview April 29 on WGBH's Boston Public Radio talk show, Lockhart raised the financial challenges engulfing the BSO organization despite it having a $600 million-plus endowment — the largest of any U.S. orchestra.

The Pops is an offshoot of the BSO, and many BSO musicians comprise the Pops. Those musicians support Nelsons and have called for his reinstatement.

Boston Public hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan pressed Lockhart into talk candidly in the aftermath of the BSO trustees' decision to cut ties with symphony orchestra conductor and music director Andris Nelsons after the 2027 Tanglewood season. Lockhart typically keeps his media interviews focused on promoting upcoming concerts and was on the broadcast to preview the Pops' spring season, but he did weigh in.

Said Lockhart, “There is a lot of blame to be spread around to a lot of different constituencies in this current kerfuffle we’re in.”

Link to skip to Keith Lockhart discussing BSO, Andris Nelsons.

Lockhart said the BSO's "board and management seriously miscalculated their announcement. I can’t blame people for having felt blindsided by it.”

“The BSO is an ongoing great institution that needs — as most large arts organizations in this country need — big resets and big decisions to be made over the next few years because we have been living on borrowed time,” Lockhart said. “I also think Andris is one of the great conductors of his generation. And I would stand by both of those things.”

Lockhart said the situation “was handled badly by them," referring to BSO trustees and management, "but also by Andris and his camp, because I think they created an emotional turmoil that did not have to be.” Lockhart did not elaborate.

“And I think, honestly, it has been handled badly by the media,” Lockhart said.

"How so?" Braude asked him.

“The media’s need to find conflict has created greater entrenchment than perhaps there needed to be,” Lockhart said.

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, seen here at Tanglewood in 2023, told Boston Public Radio interviewers recently that the BSO is living on "borrowed time" caused by declining audiences and financial challenges despite a robust $600 million-plus endowment.

Lockhart said he had no knowledge about the “sticking points” that led to the termination of Nelsons’ contract, which was considered evergreen.

“All I know is that Andris is a great conductor and this is a great organization, and both will be fine at the end of the day,” Lockhart said. “Now what we have to do is come back together and discuss the future of the organization.”

Asked by The Eagle whether he agrees with Lockhart’s description of the BSO as “living on borrowed time” financially, BSO President and CEO Chad Smith referred to previous statements.

The orchestra’s classical concert ticket sales declined by 40 percent in the past 20 years along with what Smith described as $110 million drawdowns of the endowment and “flat contributed income from 2014 to 2024.”

Smith said, “That’s no way to run a business.”

At the Aug. 22, 2025, Tanglewood celebration for his 30th anniversary as Boston Pops Conductor, Keith Lockhart gratefully accepted the audience's applause following a star-studded concert with archival video tributes. In a recent public radio interview, he contended that both sides shoulder some of the blame for the BSO's breakup with Music Director Andris Nelsons as of August 2027.

The BSO, a nonprofit, ran an operating loss of $17 million in fiscal 2023 and more than $6 million in 2024, according to publicly available Form 990 tax filings.

“We have to fix our business model so we can be sustainable going forward,” Smith said.

The BSO’s new strategic plan “is not about cutting our way to the future. It is a plan for growing our way to health” by attracting larger audiences and more donors while expanding the endowment through a significant fundraising campaign.

A goal is to invest in repairing and upgrading the BSO’s buildings in Boston and at Tanglewood.

“We’re going to do that by centering the BSO as the most excellent orchestra in the world, but we have to be excellent in many different ways including support of learning in the communities and taking care of those properties,” Smith said.