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San Antonio Symphony News and Archive
Last updated June 12, 2000 at 12:15 pm CDT.

    Tentative symphony accord is reached


    from the San Antonio Express News 9/30/98

    by Mike Greenberg

    A tentative agreement was reached late Tuesday in contract talks between the Symphony Society of San Antonio and its musicians.

    Spokesmen for both sides declined to provide details of the deal.

    If ratified by the musicians and by a committee of the symphony's governing board, the agreement could breathe new life into an organization that, despite the national reputation of its orchestra, has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for months.

    "We have a tentative agreement," said Jean Robinson, a flutist with the orchestra who chairs the musicians' bargaining team. "We're going to be meeting with the orchestra tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9 a.m. to ratify it - or not ratify it."

    A news conference to announce details of the agreement and the outcome of the musicians' vote is scheduled for 1 p.m. today at City Hall.

    "I hope we can perform this weekend," symphony board chairman Charlie Lutz said. "Everyone's trying to determine if that is possible."

    An all-Beethoven program, originally scheduled for Friday and Saturday, was canceled last week as contract talks deadlocked.

    Faced with $2.1 million in debt and only $7,000 in the bank, the symphony's governing board early this month postponed the start of the orchestra's 60th anniversary season, which was to have opened Sept. 11.

    The symphony's office was closed Monday - its administrative staff members laid off because the organization no longer could afford to pay them.

    A group of business and foundation "stakeholders" has offered a $5 million rescue package for the symphony, but only on condition it balance its budget for each of the next five years.

    The symphony board asked the musicians to renegotiate their collective bargaining agreement to help cut $400,000 from the symphony's budget, which last year stood at $6.8 million.

    Lutz would not provide details of the agreement, except to say it would enable the symphony to balance its budget for the 1998-99 season.

    Robinson also would not disclose details of the tentative agreement, which was reached after a full day of mediation.

    Mayor Howard Peak, who said he has been "a middle person between the two groups for a few weeks," said he was not involved in Tuesday's mediation session.

    Peak declined comment on the shape of the agreement.

    "I'm hopeful," he added. "I'm optimistic, but things aren't buttoned down entirely."

    Lutz will poll the executive committee of the symphony board to see if they agree to the deal.

    The two mediators, one each designated by the musicians and management, were unavailable for comment.

    They arrived in San Antonio late Sunday, spent Monday researching the problem and met all day and into the night on Tuesday. Robinson announced the agreement shortly after 9 p.m.

    The musicians chose Fred Zenone, a cellist with the National Symphony in Washington, as their mediator. The symphony's management was represented by Nick Webster, former executive director of the New York Philharmonic.

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