San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Doors closed to musicians




No play, no pay for S.A. orchestra

from the San Antonio Express News 9/10/98

by Mike Greenberg



It was just a media event, but the point was made: San Antonio Symphony musicians showed up in front of the Majestic Theater with their instruments Wednesday morning, only to find the doors locked.

The symphony board had voted the day before to scrub the scheduled opening concerts of its 60th anniversary season this weekend. Rehearsals were to have started Wednesday.

The start of the season is on hold until the orchestra's financial instability and debt - said to be as high as $1.9 million - are resolved.

The delay left newly hired musicians stranded and symphony supporters groping for a solution. It also gave a higher profile to ongoing fund-raising efforts.

The musicians had been asked to renegotiate their contract and accept more than $617,000 in wage and benefits concessions.

"Instead of being here to begin working on a new season as called for in our contract, we are here to express our disappointment, and to express our thanks to the disappointed audience members who were planning to be here this weekend, for their support," Jean Robinson, speaking for the musicians as chairman of the Orchestra Committee, told reporters.

Asked if the board's action constituted a lockout, Robinson answered: "I don't know. We're not lawyers."

"I am optimistic," she added. "And negotiations are still in progress."

The musicians were willing to share the symphony's financial pain, Robinson stressed.

"The musicians voted to make a contribution to this effort, but we've laid a lot of money on the table already, and we've been told that isn't enough."

Season ticket holders will be informed later on a procedure for redeeming their unused tickets, board chairman Charlie Lutz said late Tuesday.

After meeting briefly with reporters to announce the board's decision Tuesday and answer a few questions, Lutz said he would have no further comment.

Rick Lindner, chairman of a task force formed during the summer to study the symphony's problems, did not return phone calls.

But Palmer Moe, who is director of the $300 million Kronkosky Foundation and a leader of the effort to put together a rescue package for the orchestra, said Wednesday the two sides were "not that far apart."

Moe attributed the stall in bargaining to a "lack of communication."

Music director Christopher Wilkins, who joined the musicians in front of the Majestic, put an upbeat spin on the week's events.

"This whole crisis is feeding from extraordinarily positive energy," Wilkins said, noting an outpouring of community support for the orchestra.

Sheila Swartzman, an anesthesiologist who organized an ad hoc rally of symphony supporters last week, said of the postponement: "We were very disappointed, but not completely discouraged.

"We're selling our T-shirts, we're calling our doctor friends."

Wilkins is proceeding on the assumption the season will resume within a few weeks. He rehearsed with the symphony's Mastersingers chorus on Tuesday night, shortly after the board put the season on hold.

Brenda Elbel, an alto in the chorus, said Wilkins and Mastersingers president John Cornell appealed to the singers to help raise money for the orchestra.

Elbel said Mastersingers were planning to sell "Save Our Symphony" T-shirts Wednesday night in front of a Barnes & Noble book store, which also announced that it would donate a portion of its Wednesday night sales to the symphony.

The T-shirts were donated by symphony supporter Janet Puckett, Elbel said, so the full $16 price will go to the symphony.

Historian and educator Jacques Barzun, one of the nation's most prominent scholars and a recent transplant to San Antonio from New York, also is a staunch advocate for the symphony.

"I think that if this postponement wakes up the community and the authorities to the very real danger of losing the symphony, that's fine," Barzun said. "But if this is a vestibule to losing the symphony, I would grieve."

"I think it's in the first rank of large-city orchestras in this country, and Christopher Wilkins is a conductor of international caliber."

Although some of the musicians have income from teaching jobs on the side, the delayed opening leaves newly hired musicians in the lurch.

Keith Popejoy drove in from San Diego late Tuesday to take a new job as principal horn with the San Antonio Symphony. He arrived "last night about 9:30," Popejoy said Wednesday.

And when did he learn the season opener had been canceled?

"Last night about 9:30," he said.

Popejoy planned to start driving back to San Diego on Wednesday afternoon, after less than a day in town, to resume his post with the San Diego Symphony.

Steve Dumaine quit the New World Symphony of Miami Beach to take the principal tuba post with the San Antonio Symphony.

Because he quit the Miami Beach job, one year into what was to have been a three-year fellowship with the distinguished training orchestra, Dumaine is ineligible for unemployment, he said.

"I have $5 right now," he said.

Since his arrival in San Antonio two weeks ago, Dumaine has been staying with principal trombonist Mark Horner, who also is putting up newly arrived violinist Suzy Perelman.

After completing her master's degree at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University in May, Perelman was accepted by the Charleston Symphony in South Carolina.

But when she learned that her audition tape had been accepted by the San Antonio Symphony, "and learning what a great job this was," she turned down the Charleston offer to come here.

"Now here I am in a new city where I know only two people and I'm not making any money," she said.

Executive Director David Schillhammer said the symphony still is selling tickets for future concerts after this weekend.

Money from advance ticket sales will be held in escrow.



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