Coming back to DK after a few years of mostly mobile front-page browsing (and I'll admit, my posts spike, ahem, every four years), I've been struck by the great classical music community here (particularly Dave in Northridge's full-on music-nerdout posts, which are a respite from feeling outraged).
The classical music world, however, has not been a respite of late. Lower corporate and personal charitable contributions have put hard-won contracts on the chopping table as symphonies, accustomed to operating at a loss, can't make receipts. The latest is a lockout by the Atlanta Symphony. Happy Labor Day.:
Atlanta, GA, September 4, 2012: On August 24, in an unprecedented effort to reach agreement on terms of a new collective bargaining agreement, the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra Players Committee (ASOPA) offered very deep cuts in the
Orchestra to the Atlanta Symphony Management negotiating team and the ASO
Board. The $4 million in concessions offered by the 88 current Musicians of the ASO
would be combined with parallel income cuts for those on the approximately 75-
member ASO administrative staff who are paid at least the minimum salary of ASO
musicians.
ASO negotiators and staff, together with ASO board members, applauded with
appreciation the musicians’ enormous offer of concessions, expressing privately that
musicians have given enough – that the musicians should hold firm while an
agreement was worked out with others. They also asked ASOPA to avoid talking
with the press or even releasing full details of the talks to the Orchestra musicians, a
request with which ASOPA agreed and has cooperated fully. Meanwhile, the WAC
cancelled the musicians’ August 31 paychecks, as well as their health, dental, and
disability insurance.
It's an old familiar song, from the 2010-2011 Detroit Symphony strike to the Philadelphia Orchestra's 2011 Bankruptcy to April's Louisville Symphony strike and subsequent search for replacement musicians, from which this memorable Wonka Macro arose.
I will say my sympathies are certainly with the musicians--I am one myself, and I come from a family of freelance musicians. And yet, these are more nuanced cases that really challenge social values about art, who pays for it, who doesn't and why. A much lengthier coda is under the dal-segno sign.
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