Everything's up to date in......Detroit?

Pillaged by fire and crime, Detroit has struggled for over 60 years

Back in 2013, the city became the largest municipality in the nation to declare bankruptcy. Concerning population, Detroit has lost 61% of its residents since 1950 (down from 1.8 million to 700,000). The public schools have become, individually and collectively, an educational nightmare, guided by one of Michigan's emergency managers (this guy used to be in Flint) as well as administrators who have ended up in jail after bribery charges and convictions. A tumultuous work stoppage at the Symphony (DSO) dragged on for months. Could things get any worse?

Financial straits are still dire, and the schools still suffer. There are signs that the population has begun to stabilize, and new construction and renovation of old are combining to offer a renaissance of this once great city. The city was recently named one of the "52 Places to Go in 2017" by the New York Times. Challenges remain, but many community leaders in the public and private sectors are meeting them head on.

The once crime laden "Cass Corridor" is morphing into "The District."
Anchored by the new ice arena, it will include easy access to all of
Detroit's professional sports venues, theaters, loads of restaurants,
and lots more reasons to come into the city.

In the fall, the DSO announced the formation of an adult amateur ensemble, expanding the organization's educational components to a new group of stakeholders. In financial terms, Crain's Detroit Business is boasting a "resounding success" for both the DSO and the Michigan Opera Theater. The symphony ended the fiscal year over $130,000 in the black. Individual donors are up over 30%, surpassing 10,000, up from 7,000 last year. Gifts earmarked for the endowment were over $5.1 million.

Detroit's magnificent Orchestra Hall, reclaimed in 1989

As a result, the orchestra and its musicians negotiated a new three-year contract, achieved well ahead (eight months) of the end of the current agreement. According to the Detroit News, the terms include:

• A 4-percent raise by 2020, the last year of the contract, lifting base pay from $91,259 to $96,096.

• A stipend to tide them over in the 10 unpaid, nonperformance weeks, so they don’t have to file for unemployment insurance.

• More flexible work rules boosted the number of performance weeks from 36 to 38 and will shoulder more of any increases in health-insurance premiums. The number of musicians will stay at 87, well beneath the 96 before 2011.

DSO Music Director Leonard Slatkin has been the catalyst behind much of the orchestra's rebirth and growth. He has made a significant commitment to American music and the orchestra's Carnegie Hall concerts, including all four symphonies of Charles Ives, garnered praise from the oft-critical New York press. A little over a year ago, Slatkin announced that he would be leaving the DSO at the conclusion of the 2017-18 season, offering the organization plenty of time for a search, hire, and transition to a new leader.

In July, the orchestra will embark on its first international tour since 2001, presenting eleven concerts in China and Japan. One would expect the repertoire to include (unlike too many other U.S. orchestras) a healthy dose of American music and the Detroiters do not disappoint. According to the DSO website, Asian audiences will hear Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Bernstein’s Candide Overture, Cindy McTee’s Double Play, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

It was a long decline from the city's heyday in 1950 to its nadir in 2013. But things are looking up all over. People are starting to believe in their city and at least some of its prestigious institutions. One hopes that this will carry over to the Detroit Public Schools. Change has to start somewhere and new minds, new leaders, can start to make that change work.

A lot of GOOD THINGS are happening in the arts world.

Scott Chamberlain in his blog, The Mask of the Flower Prince, pointed out a list supplied by ISCOM Chair Bruce Ridge enumerating the good news from member orchestras.

• The Atlanta Symphony announced that it ended the season with a surplus, and raised $13 million 
• The Arizona Opera exceeded its fundraising goals
• The Buffalo Philharmonic saw record season ticket sales and subscription revenues for the third consecutive year
• The Charlotte Symphony received a $2 million gift
• The Cincinnati Symphony raised over $26 million and signed a new contract that adds 15 new musicians over the next five years

Packing the seats in Cincinnati

• The Dallas Symphony achieved a balanced budget and received a $5 million gift
• The Detroit Symphony raised $1.4 million in one evening
• The Houston Grand Opera exceeded its fundraising goal, raising almost $173 million
• The Houston Symphony received a $5 million donation, the largest gift in nearly a decade
• The Indianapolis Symphony saw ticket sales increase 15%, and subscriptions rose 24%.
• The Memphis Symphony received a $1 million gift for education programs
• The Minnesota Orchestra received $6 million in special gifts and embarked on a historic tour to Cuba

• The Nashville Symphony set fundraising and ticket sales records
• The Omaha Symphony saw record attendance
• The Oregon Symphony set records for ticket sales and contributions, and its gala raised a record $700,000
• The Pacific Symphony’s gala raised a record $1.6 million
• The Richmond Symphony received a $1 million gift for outdoor concerts
• The Rochester Philharmonic reported a 19% increase in single ticket sales
• The St. Louis Symphony received a $10 million gift
• The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra saw its highest attendance in 20 years

In addition, I've previously reported substantive raises given by the Kansas City Symphony on a five-year contract settled a year early!

The Detroit Symphony is revamping its recital hall, thanks to a $3.5 million gift. Detroit? Yes, that Detroit.

"The Cube" Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall

The Dallas Symphony, right next door to striking Fort Worth, has balanced its budget and is reaping a bounty of dollars in both its annual fund and long-term commitments.

Scott knows what he's talking about as he is a longtime resident of the Twin Cities, which went through its own well-publicized nightmare. There, an entrenched Board of Directors, aided and abetted by local media, allowed an inept CEO to hold the organization hostage. That the Minnesota Orchestra has so quickly rebounded, artistically and financially, is a testament to the spirit of its people and especially the vision of Osmo Vanska.

The story sounds all too familiar because that's what's happening in Fort Worth and Pittsburgh. The respective Boards just continue to cancel programs and refuse to negotiate at all. It's all in the "last, best, and final offer" mentality. There are certainly more and better solutions, but all sides have to at least sit and talk. No one really wants the music to stop for, if it's gone long enough, some might forget it was ever there.

On Fort Worth....On Hartford.....

Who is going to save it?

Just some brief notes:

Check out the terrible news about U.S. Armed Forces musicians here.

Here are the facts, as published by the Musicians of the Fort Worth Symphony, AND one individual musician's take on all of the "dis-chord" on the ground. It is more than painfully obvious that management is making little effort in development.

In Hartford, Steve Collins has been named Executive Director, ending the very odd arrangement in which the Landlord was also CEO of the symphony. That at least lends more transparency to the organization. Of course, the organization still remains strapped for cash, AND they just created an Assistant Conductor position! Go figure....

There's less than good news out of Baltimore. I'm digging into that.

There is also some good news out there. For example:

• In Detroit, cash for every musician.

• In Kansas City, endowing the Assistant Conductor position.

Trouble in a River City

Trouble that starts with "T," that rhymes with G.....

Growing up in Central Michigan and the backyard of Michigan State University, I was fortunate enough to be near the seat of government as well as the cultural amenities of both the town and the gown. Lansing had what was, I suppose, a decent orchestra (which I sang with on more than one occasion). It was at the university that I would encounter life-altering musical events, including my very first opera (Carmen) as well as live performances of both the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, both on tour in May 1976. Detroit (a much more attractive place despite the riots that plagued that city a decade before) wasn't that far away; its summer home--Meadowbook--on the Oakland University campus--was still active. It's concert hall at the time, Ford Auditorium, was horrible inside and out. But that organization has come full circle, returning to its original home at Orchestra Hall in 1989.

My travels west resulted mostly in visits to "the Lake" (Michigan, that is). The delights of lakeside communities of Holland and Grand Haven were too numerous to mention and the water finally becomes swimmable in the later summer. Every trip to the lake meant passing by Grand Rapids, and there rarely seemed a reason to stop.

For the longest time, GR (as the locals call it) was known as the "Furniture City". Since an 1876 international exhibition in Philadelphia, its renown as a center for fine furniture was cemented. Although those days aren't completely gone, the products manufactured in GR are mostly office products, as opposed to the wooden furniture for which the city gained its fame. In the 70s and 80s, GR always seemed to me to be a sleepy little town, with few reasons to visit, outside of a fabulous sheet music store (now a part of the J.W. Pepper chain) and a pizza joint replete with a working "Mighty Wurlitzer" (now long gone). That, to me, was Grand Rapids. Never did I venture downtown--there was no reason to, and as long as the expressway went around the city, little opportunity either.

Somewhere around 1980, as I was nearing completion of my own degree studies and preparing (unknown to me at the time) a move west, GR began to change. The Amway Corporation, began to invest in the area, renovating the historic Pantlind Hotel. The Gerald R. Ford Museum was completed in 1981 in honor of GR's favorite son and 38th President. The 1980s also brought DeVos Performance Hall, a "real home" for the local orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, an ensemble that, in my youth seemed as sleepy as the town.

DeVos Performance Hall, Grand Rapids

(N.B. The Frederick Meijer Gardens, north of the city, are incredibly cool, especially the sculptures scattered throughout.)

Leonardo's horse at the Meijer Gardens

The GR Symphony was founded as a community orchestra in 1930. A number of renowned conductors have led the ensemble over the years, including Nicolai Malko (1942-1946), Desire Defauw (1954-1958), Semyon Bychkov (1980-1985), and Catherine Comet (1985-1998). Currently, the orchestra is engaged in a massive search to replace outgoing Music Director David Lockington; in fact, almost all of the press generated by the orchestra has concerned the guest conductors, with little offerings discussing some very important behind-the-scene issues.

GRS Music Director Laureate David Lockington, 1999-2015

Like many orchestras its size, the rise and fall of the organization's fortune have been in lockstep with the manufacturing base that is vital to the Wolverine state's economy. The 80s were a difficult time for the entire state and, of course, the crisis of 2008-09 adversely affected arts organizations, some of which have still to come to grips with the slash and burn tactics of executives and boards of directors. A two-year agreement was ratified in 2009, cutting musicians salaries 9 to 14 percent and reduced the orchestra's season from 42 to 40 weeks among other cost-cutting measures. The current four-year contract, reached in 2011, resulted in a one-year pay freeze, with approximately seven percent increases over the subsequent three seasons. Thus, all the musicians are will left behind what they were earning pre-2009.

And that's where things have stood since the contract expiration (August 31, 2015). Since that time a lone article has appeared even mentioning the issue. The Kent-Ionia Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO did report in September that While we cannot reveal specific details from our negotiation sessions, we can say that the Musicians seek for the GRS to grow along with the city that currently is experiencing a boom like never before, while the management seems to want to turn back the clock, shrinking the number of full-time players, and decreasing pay and benefits to its Musicians. 

Drew McManus, in Adaptistration, commented in September that this (Grand Rapids Symphony) is one of the more intriguing scenarios in that the orchestra’s musicians have been expanding long running, self-produced community engagement efforts in order to strengthen their potential support base if the orchestra enters a work stoppage. One recent effort included a free, hour long concert with the theme “paying tribute to how symphony musicians in Grand Rapids have served the community since 1930.” Sources close to negotiations indicate that the employer has been pushing hard for large cuts in the form of a truncated season that would amount to a 15 percent reduction in musician annual salary.

The newsletter of ICSOM, the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians, has been equally lacking in details about the on-going negotiations.

Something has to give. Like Fort Worth, Grand Rapids is experiencing an ever-expanding economy. But, without a leader at the helm, giving is going to take awhile to return as stakeholders examine the "new guy" (for the record, there is only one woman in the cadre of finalists). It's all about wait-and-see for musicians and audiences alike.

If you can't "do....." A (partial) tale of the mess in FW

Seriously, how did the Fort Worth Symphony get to this point? Players are up in arms about another pay cut. Management is insistent that it needs to happen in order to keep the organization solvent (no talk of a lock out, but the player's union has authorized a strike--if it comes to that.)

Detroit in 2010, could be anywhere today...

2010 wasn't really a great year for symphony orchestras in the U.S. The Cleveland Orchestra stuck early that year when negotiations broke down. In the fall, the Detroit Symphony was just starting what would become a near-crippling walk out. And the autumn began in silence as the musicians of the Fort Worth Symphony imposed, according to Front Row D magazine, a warning to orchestra management that the musicians were united in their opposition to cuts proposed during their contract renewal talks.

In November, musicians gave in to a very large pay cut of nearly 14%. At that time, FWSOA President Ann Koonsman (who would serve less than one year more) said, With this new agreement, the musicians are accepting a decrease in pay. None of us are pleased about that, and I ask the community to step forward and to increase their support of the Orchestra. The players were led to believe that management would step up its development efforts in order to restore what they had given away. Unfortunately....

Ann Koonsman, gotta love the pose....

In 2010, the head of development (that's the person directly in charge of raising donor dollars) was Amy Adkins. She was rewarded for her bang up job with a promotion--to the President's position! Yes, you read that correctly: the person who didn't raise enough money to balance the budget would become the head of the whole organization. In fact, she was the only person considered for the job, having been basically crowned by the outgoing CEO, Ms. Koonsman. Let's not even get into someone hiring their replacement...

One has to wonder a bit about Ms. Adkins, of whom it was said (again in Front Row, January 28, 2011), The Board of Directors is thrilled to announce Amy’s appointment as president and CEO. Her longtime dedication to the Orchestra, her love of music, and her ability to form relationships with key supporters makes her the perfect fit. Amy’s knowledge of orchestral management combined with her superb fundraising talents will ensure that the Orchestra has a bright future.

Knowledge of orchestral management? Where did that come from? Here's the backstory, as chronicled by Ms. Adkins herself (in a Front Row story from August):

She started college as a piano performance major at Texas Tech University, where she met her future husband, Alton Adkins. But while on a trip to visit a friend in New York City when she was 20 years old, Adkins took a little personal tour of the famed Juilliard School of Music that changed the course of her career.

"I remember hearing the level of playing coming out of those Juilliard rooms," she recalls. "I realized that I just wasn't at that level and that a performance career was not going to be for me." So let's get this right: is this an example of "if you can't do..."

And just like that, Adkins shifted her major from performance to music education. With her freshly minted education and music certification degree in hand, she began to teach music and choir in the Duncanville school district. After two years of teaching, Adkins was emotionally and physically spent. But she couldn't handle teaching after two whole years? (Sorry, I've been in the profession for 30. Every day is a joy.)

Enter Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, which, in the summer of 1993, engaged Adkins' husband as a French horn player. Alton Adkins has been with the orchestra ever since.

By 1995, Adkins had joined the orchestra as its education coordinator. Eventually, Adkins would take on the more influential position of development director, where she thrived. Thrived so well that the players took a huge pay cut right before she assumed control.

DFW International, one of the world's busiest

Granted, in 2010 the nation was coming out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  That said, the orchestra had a successful endowment campaign completed in 2008. Then there's Rick Perry's "Texas Miracle." Godsend or not, Texas was not hit as hard by the recession as the rest of the country. The price of a barrel of crude reached its lowest point in 2009, when it was $53.48. A year later, that same price had risen to over $71. The entire state was in a growth pattern which has yet to abate.

Since 2000, Fort Worth has been the fastest growing city in the U.S. The nation's 16th largest city, it is part of the number one tourist destination in Texas. Some 6.5 million people annually visit the Dallas-Fort Worth area. WalletHub has called it the number 1 city for finding a job. Visit the FW Chamber of Commerce website; Fort Worth, by all measures, is a happening place....

Fort Worth skyline: not just a cow town anymore...

By all measures except what it pays its orchestra. It's obvious that the blame must rest with management. They were given a huge concession in 2010. Five years later (this mess has been going on since last summer) management has demanded (there has never been any "asking") for more.

The buck stops at the top.