Hartford Symphony's Value Is Greater Than Its Music

Maybe in the Chorale; Not so in the HSO.

I've written a great deal about the Hartford Symphony, so much so that some might accuse me of ulterior motives. I have no skin in the game. I don't know anyone in the Hartford Symphony or the city of Hartford (unless you're talking about a loose connection with my auto insurance policy, issued by--drum roll please--the Hartford. I've never even been to Connecticut; some day I'll remedy that. I hope to be able to hear the Hartford Symphony.

But I thought I'd step away for a moment and allow someone "on the ground" offer his thoughts on the impasse (I think of it more as a crisis). This from Robert Thorson, a Professor at UConn's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, in the Hartford Courant, January 6:

Prof. Robert Thorson

The Hartford Symphony Orchestra must not be silenced. Something must be done to clear the impasse between management and labor, or in this case between the symphony's board of directors and its unionized musicians.

My life would continue normally if the orchestra were muffled. But it would be diminished. Not because I attend many concerts. But because I would wake up each morning knowing that my state's capital city supports minor league Yard Goats, but not major league music....

Happily, the HSO impasse is less about music than money. This has always been the case with public orchestras. Indeed, the HSO was founded in 1934, not by a professional musician, but by a prominent local businessman, Francis Goodwin II, who understood the symbolic value of bringing a "real" orchestra to a rising city. And it was founded not by philanthropic largesse, but by a federally funded jobs creation program to help struggling musicians get through the Great Depression. The history lesson is clear. Public financial support is essential, then and now.

The board of directors wants to cut musician salaries by 30 percent. (Actually it is more than that.) In turn, the musicians claim that the root cause of financial trouble lies with the board's vision. Surely the truth lies in both camps. The musicians can hardly go on strike. And the board can hardly shift to another product line. We, as listeners, need them, as much as they need us.

Let the music continue.

Kuan, Is she this happy now?

Although Music Director Carolyn Kuan has offered to reduce her own salary, one has to wonder if that is enough. As the HSO made its final offer, Mara Lee reported on Friday that HSO Board Chairman Jeffrey Verney did not return a call for comment. Apparently, neither did "Artistic Director Steven Collins (who) declined to be interviewed about how the final offer differed from last week's comprehensive proposal."

One word about Kuan's benefits. They include a rental apartment, a rental car, and travel costs. From Ms. Lee's article: Kuan's salary in 2013, according to tax forms charities file, was just over $154,000, although she also received $24,240 in nontaxable benefits, including the cost of renting her apartment, automobile rental and travel costs. Kuan, who became the symphony's 10th music director in 2011, signed a six-year contract last year that begins in June. These are all things associated with the current "absentee landlord" type of conductor. Take several jobs but live wherever you like. Don't make a commitment to the community in which you serve and, in kind, serves you and your musicians.

Management continues to lament the difficulty in maintaining its donor base. Honestly, that shouldn't be difficult in a city with an much insurance money as Hartford. But, of course, who in their right mind would want to offer financial support to an organization that has proven itself an administrative nightmare and a financial black hole?

My thoughts? The musicians will cave because they have no choice. This obviously isn't a full-time job for an of them; those are reserved to the Music Director (who must have work elsewhere) and administrative personnel. We're not going to see "the day the music died" in Hartford, but it will certainly be performed by musicians who see the value of that work gravely diminished.

Bushnell: Show me the money!

As the Hartford Symphony approaches the (literal) zero hour, I've stepped back a bit from reading about last ditch efforts to save the HSO. Yesterday, I offered part of a letter from an HSO musician, trumpeter Jay Lichtmann, who wrote Mr. Fay has promised to use the Bushnell's development office to help raise funds for the symphony, but little has been done on this front. The orchestra's debts continue to mount while sizable new financial commitments have been made.

From Dictionary.com: Alliance; noun

1. the act of allying or state of being allied.
2. a formal agreement or treaty between two or more nations to cooperate for specific purposes.
3. a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations: an alliance between church and state.
4. the persons or entities so allied.
5. marriage or the relationship created by marriage between the families of the spouses.
6. correspondence in basic characteristics; affinity: the alliance between logic and metaphysics.

This?

This "alliance" has always seemed to me to be one that could only benefit the Bushnell Center, while it actually should be the other way around. If the arts center and its CEO, David Fay, really cared about the future of orchestral music in Connecticut's state capital, the development office would have leapt into action. So far, there has been little, if any effort in this regard.

So it's not an alliance. Merriam Webster offers these "near antonyms": breakup, dissolution, disunion; division, parting, separation, severance, split; alienation, divorce, estrangement. But none of those work as they imply that there was a real "alliance" in place. 

Or this?

As the labor situation has continued to escalate and the threat of a shutdown is imminent (midnight tonight), I have begun to receive reports from sources close to the symphony. One writer, who wishes to remain anonymous, wonders why nothing has been written about the organization's endowment. Well here's an answer from the HSO's 2014 IRS 990 form which indicates "investment income" of $1.35 million. What that tells me is that there is a pile of money laying around somewhere collecting all that interest. 

N.B. If one digs just a little deeper into the 990 information (check out part X) one discovers total assets of $9.8 million, which includes over $9 million in investment securities.

Eschewing altruism, one has to wonder exactly what's in this alliance for Bushnell? My source asks, What was in it for that organization? What profits, pluses, benefits. If you analyze this situation it is obvious that the answer to above questions is: none. When the merger happened, Bushnell was presented as a savior. Here we had a ailing company (HSO) joining with a strong company in promoting and distributing the arts. It seemed that HSO was the ONLY side to reap all the benefits. My question exactly.

Among the selling points to the HSO in the "alliance" (increasingly it seems nothing of the kind) include development monies of which only about 25% of the promised total has materialized. The other strong selling point were the savings the Symphony would receive on hall rental, according to my source. The HSO paid up to $60,000 a week for Bushnell rental for its concerts. Another one? The HSO was to pay only small administration fees to the Bushnell, therefore it let go of several of its employees thus saving some money. 

The reality of the situation is staggering. The Symphony is STILL paying the $60,000 per week fee! The administrative costs paid to Bushnell are around $300,000 per year. The HSO is bleeding money which goes directly to Bushnell.... Interestingly enough, The three board members who pushed for merger the most resigned or "retired" from the board a the end of last season.

There seems to be a lot of money to be made,
but where is it going?

There's more to this but will require some real "boots on the ground" investigation.

Now, here is what I've gathered about Steve Collins, the Executive Director pro tem. (Let's call the position what it truly is....):

In the summer of 2015 the musicians and management were already in contract dispute, the new contracts were not issued, the donations were not coming in, the situation was dire. Yet, Steve Collins uproots his whole family, his freelance musician wife [If you don't know what freelancers make, talk to me] and two young children and moves them to Glastonbury where he buys a $450K house. It seems like unwise move, right? Some of you mentioned in the blog that Steve Collins is really "the man in charge".  I hope not, I hope he was just as misinformed and played with as musicians. The alternative is just too terrible to comprehend. Many of us know him from the times long ago when he was a musician and spoke a slightly different language. It will be interesting to know see what happens to Collins' career after the HSO is no more. If he stays with the Bushnell...well we will have our answer. It seems to me however that Mr. Collins is a puppet in Mr. Fay's hands.

Maybe I'm getting jaded in my old age. I have been around the block more than once, with educational institutions and a number of non-profits. As a shameless plug, if you want to help a musical organization get out of a hole, talk to me about that too.

If this is true, then the ED pro tem got a pretty sizable raise from his position in Waterbury. Of course, I don't know what $450K buys in Connecticut. Here in Dubuque, the city fathers and mothers spent that much on a public restroom (I wish I was kidding).

Dubuque's infamous $450K bathroom
No, the toilets are not gold plated...

One last point that I've been thinking about and my source also questioned involves educational programs, i.e. getting symphony musicians into the schools. I understand that there has been a lot of this in the past but not a single performance yet this year. If things in Connecticut work like things in Iowa, such programs are usually supported through grants from arts councils, corporations, foundations, etc. If this is the case, Bushnell is in violation of the terms of these grants. It's like restricted endowment funds; you can only use it for its intended (or "granted") purpose. Renege on that agreement and the money has to return to its original source.

This is one convoluted mess. On the one hand the HSO is getting ready to fold. On the other hand, Bushnell continues to reap profits on the back of the HSO and, in kind, its musicians. The real winner in this "alliance" (I really need a better word) is obvious and its not the orchestra, the musicians, nor the community.

In all of this, Mara Lee, writing for the Hartford Courant, tells us that Conductor Carolyn Kuan did not return a call requesting a comment. When Atlanta faced a long and ugly lockout, conductors Robert Spano and Donald Runnicles were adamant about the situation. Osmo Vanska almost single-handedly brought the Minnesota Orchestra Association to its senses and hastened the departure of then-ED Michael Hensen. And Carolyn Kuan (who just received a raise and a six-year contract extension) is mum.

Tomorrow is the Ides of January: sadly fitting....

Et tu, Hartford?

Hartford's Bushnell Center for the Arts

In what have initial seemed an innocuous event, in March 2014, a "major partnership" between the Hartford (CT) Symphony and the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts was reported on WNPR, Connecticut's Public Radio. The report noted that this arrangement "ushers in a new era for the HSO." In a nutshell, Bushnell would assume administrative leadership for both organizations. This resulted in the resignation of HSO President and CEO as well as (at that time) a number of additional job losses on the orchestra side.

Apparently, the HSO had been in serious financial constraints for a number of years. The report goes on to state, Greig Shearer, principal flute for the HSO, said this move could save the HSO, which has struggled financially in recent years. "It's frustrating," he said. "Ever since I've been in the orchestra, it's been touch and go financially. Going it alone didn't look like it would be stable for us in the future. I think it is a good move."

But might there be more than meets the eye (and the pocketbook)? A similar arrangement took place in Atlanta when the Symphony merged its services with the Woodruff. While the ASO did maintain its own CEO, it didn't take long for funding delays and cuts from the "parent" organization to affect the "child." And eventually, the disastrous and protracted lockout happened.

Well, in a case of "deja vu all over again," the same WNPR (July 30, 2015) reported picket lines forming outside the Bushnell as the HSO was proposing a 40% reduction in salary (yep, that's 40%). But HSO President and CEO David Fay believes the musicians' bargaining unit is distorting the details of the contract. In a written statement, Fay said: "We are preparing to respond factually to the accusations being made by the American Federation of Musicians in regard to the ongoing negotiations."

Why couldn't he have responded right then and there?

Mortensen Hall at the Bushnell
Capacity: 2800

Forward to September 9 when the NLRB filed a complaint against the HSO organization in violation of its contractual agreement that musicians would receive their next season's schedule in May. The Hartford Courant noted that the HSO was planning on reducing services (rehearsals and performances), thus necessitating the draconian reduction in salaries. The article goes on to state, That reduced schedule has not been written into individual contracts with musicians, because the two sides are still grappling with how much work will be guaranteed. Because those schedules had historically been set by May 1, and the union did not agree to a delay, the NLRB on Aug. 28 accused the symphony of "failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith."

A little more than a week later (September 17) an op-ed article in the Courant urged that
Symphony Contract Deal Requires Realism. Author Ronald Compton, who had negotiated a musician agreement in the 1990s but had no skin in the current game, wrote, "Successfully solving a problem requires that the real problem be identified. If that requirement is not met, no viable solution can result. So, what is the problem?"

"This is going to take serious money to solve", says Compton, and courting potential donors can be a time-consuming and tedious process. He went on to note that, "Significant donors look for two things: quality and stability. The symphony certainly has the former, but especially given the many harmful public statements about the present situation, many of us believe that funding is most likely to decrease just when it needs to increase the most. The words "strike" and "lockout" are anathema to donors. Beyond that, some pretty knowledgeable people fear that in the event of either of those disastrous events, the symphony, at least as we know it, might not survive."

Fast forward to December and the AP reports a pending lockout, all because of years of poor fiscal management. The orchestra, which is in its 72nd season, is undercapitalized and struggling with annual deficits of more than $1.3 million, officials say. A $2 million line of credit also is fully drawn. The symphony says it has cut operating expenses by 26 percent over the past seven years, to $4.8 million from $6.5 million. But money problems remain. “If we don’t solve our financial crisis with a long-term solution by the end of January, we’ll have to make difficult decisions, all of which are unpalatable, including shutting down immediately,” said Stephen Collins, director of artistic operations and administration at the symphony.

It's too much like Atlanta, Minnesota, or (regarding their shutdown at the close of the 100th anniversary season) Green Bay.

(For the record, there's money--lots of it--in Hartford, which bears the nickname "Insurance Capital of the World." Long a very wealthy city, its metropolitan area ranks 7th out of 280 metropolitan statistical areas in per capita income. There is a great deal of income disparity, whereas 83% of Hartford's jobs are filled by commuters from neighboring towns who earn over $80,000, while 75% of Hartford residents who commute to work in other towns earn just $40,000. After many years of population losses, those numbers have rebounded since the 2000 census.