Score and Podium (and other musical minutia): Star-Telegram

Showing posts with label Star-Telegram. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

JUST WHEN IT COULDN'T GET WORSE....

This city ought to be able to afford its orchestra

The contract turmoil surrounding the Fort Worth Symphony has reached a new low. As previously reported here, news stories from the Star-Telegram have been slanted toward management. Now, a highly provocative editorial has appeared on those same pages:

Several very smart and dedicated people have worked for more than a year on a new labor agreement between the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association and its musicians, aiming to continue world-class symphonic music performances begun more than a century ago.

It hasn’t worked. The musicians have gone on strike, and the orchestra’s season-opening performances last weekend were canceled....

The musicians, represented by Local 72-147 of the American Federation of Musicians, are still smarting from a 13.5 percent pay cut they accepted in 2010 to help the FWSO weather the effects of the Great Recession. (Wasn't the nation in the midst of an economic comeback by 2010?)

While frequent references to that cut might help gain public sympathy, that money is gone and won’t come back.

The union negotiating committee worked with association managers and a federal negotiator to develop a new contract offer. Although the committee recommended approval, the musicians rejected it “overwhelmingly,” union representatives said.

The two sides portray the numbers differently, but the rejected four-year contract contained pay cuts in the first year followed by slight increases in later years, putting the musicians a little above their current salaries — which average $62,000 plus health benefits — by the fourth year.

It’s hard to imagine that such an offer, or something very much like it, isn’t the best the musicians can get. Still, they’ve made their position clear.

These smart and dedicated people could be talking about the end of the FWSO.

Is the editorial implying that the musicians are the "smart and dedicated people"? Management all to easily forgets that stakeholders (i.e. the butts in the seats) come to concerts to hear the music. Give them a quality product and they'll be there. Expand outreach beyond the "usual suspects" in the donor pool, and the funds will be forthcoming.

Gary Wortel

Something that is missing in this one-sided media war (circus?) is an important fact: Star-Telegram Publisher Gary Wortel is a member of the FWSO Board of Directors. So, just like we saw in Minnesota so few short years ago, the Board controls the local media......but not all of it.

The Dallas Morning News has offered a much more comprehensive look at the situation. While reiterating the company line, it has offered a different perspective from the side of the musicians themselves:

After years of cuts and irresponsibly refusing to bargain further, the future of the FWSO is now at stake. The musicians continue to call on management to return to the bargaining table in the interest of coming to an agreement and ensuring the orchestra's very existence.

We want our audiences and the citizens of Fort Worth to know how much we regret that we are forced to take this extreme step," said Julie Vinsant, a bassist and member of the musicians' negotiating committee. "We call on our management to come back to the table so that we can continue providing great music for our great city. We are very thankful for your continuing steadfast support....

Read the entire article for the whole story.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/editorials/article101444512.html#storylink=cpy

Monday, January 25, 2016

An update from Fort Worth

It seems as though, no sooner than I'd written about the Fort Worth crisis, there was more news in the air. The management determined that it would begin Monday (tomorrow) with concessionary terms, which cut musicians’ pay more than 8 percent and save the symphony $371,000 a year, this according to Andrea Ahles of the Star Telegram.

Andrea Ahles

Musicians were apparently ready for this action and met before Friday evening's performance to reject the plan. KERA News reported “In 2010, we accepted a 13.5% pay cut, saving the symphony over $2.3 million to date,” the musicians’ union says in a statement. “Where did that money go? In the meantime, Orchestra management has had five years to come up with a plan for growth, but they have not. Instead, they have been depleting the Symphony’s contingency funds. Now, once again, we are being told to pay for a pattern of shortsighted management, cutting our salaries down to 2003 levels....

It also needs to be noted that the FWSO completed its Millennium Campaign in 2008, raising some $28 million for the orchestra's endowment. Of course, it took eight years to get there rather slow going when compared to other non-profit entities. So, one could ask, "Where's the money?" Yes, it probably took a big hit along with the recession. But, as economists will tell us, the country has largely recovered. What's wrong with Fort Worth? All that CEO Adkins has to offer is excuses:

Adkins next to Lan Lang at a 2015 Gala
Um, if they can afford to bring him in......

“No matter what we are doing to improve matters, the setbacks have erased everything we’ve done and then some,” Adkins said.

This year, she said, the deficit will grow to $650,000, partly because of increased rental costs at Bass Hall. (Bass Hall rental fees also continued to increase. Since 2010, the symphony’s rent has risen more than 23 percent, from $260,000 to this year’s expected payment of $319,000.) It seems to me that some renegotiation of that contract is in order.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article55995395.html#storylink=c

It must be noted that Bass Hall brags on its own website:

The mission of the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall is to serve as a permanent home to major performing arts organizations of Fort Worth and as a premiere venue for other attractions so as to enhance the range, quality, and accessibility of cultural fare available to the public; to promulgate arts education; and to contribute to the cultural life of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, and the region.

Bass Performance Hall is the crown jewel of a city which boasts the nation's third largest cultural district. It is also an important symbol of one of the most successful downtown revitalization efforts in the country.

Built entirely with private funds, Bass Performance Hall is permanent home to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Texas Ballet Theater, Fort Worth Opera, and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and Cliburn Concerts. Each resident company operates independently from Performing Arts Fort Worth and manages its own programming schedule at Bass Hall.

“We often had to beg and plead for money at the end of every year to balance the budget, and many of those year-end ‘angels’ are either gone or not able to do what they once did,” Adkins said.

Something just plain doesn't add up....like this:

“The bottom line is we have made up a lot of the ground we lost in 2008 and 2009, but our revenue still remains less than it was prior to the recession,” Adkins said.

Bad-faith bargaining has been happening across the country (note the culmination of the Hartford crisis. It continues to occur in places as wide-ranging as Colorado and Michigan (as if Flint's water woes weren't enough to deal with).

But tomorrow, let's talk about Amy Adkins and how she is not at all qualified to be the Chief Executive of the FWSO.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article55995395.html#storylink=cpy

Friday, January 22, 2016

Meanwhile in Fort Worth

I've had to step back from chronicling the situation in Hartford. It's been exhausting. That doesn't mean that I am finished banging the drum for the HSO. One has to only hope that the powers-that-be come to their senses and realize that the "alliance" between the HSO and BPAC benefits only the latter. More will be seen about the true picture when the 2014 990s are released.

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1912, has a long and distinguished history. Disbanded in 1917 due to the First World War, it was reconstituted in 1925 and only four years later, Lela Rogers (Ginger's mom!) became Executive Director. The orchestra has played at Carnegie Hall (as both the Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra and in 2008 as the FWSO), toured China, Mexico, and Spain. Ann Koonsman served 31 years as Executive Director starting in 1980. It was in the change of leadership that the house began to crumble.

The FWSO, "with their assured, rich-hued and impassioned account
of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony."
NY Times, January 2008

A few weeks ago, I wrote of the problems within the organization. As a reminder, the players agreed to a 13.5% pay cut to help pull the orchestra out from the nation's recession. The next time contractual negotiations began--the contract expired in July--management comes forward with an "offer" of an 8.7% cut, eliminating a 3.5% give-back in 2012 and then some.

The orchestra is allegedly running deficits between $200 and $400K. The major sticking point for me is that the former development officer who should have been beating the bushes raising funds to get the orchestra out of the red three years ago (Amy Adkins is her name) was promoted to the Executive Director's position in 2011.

Amy Adkins
I'm trying to figure out the pose...

DFW.com wrote of Adkins' ascendence to the head job in an August 2011 article, Amy Adkins takes fearlessness to new heights as leader of the FWSO. In it, Adkins put a bright face on an orchestra that had just gone through a bitter negotiation process, "I know this is a big job, and I would be lying to say I'm not just a bit intimidated, but I also hasten to say I'm not a fearful kind of person," says Adkins, whose orchestra résumé includes time as its education coordinator and, most recently, development director. "Honestly, becoming president was not something I first aspired to, but I just adore this organization and I feel so passionately about the people that work for it that I have become compelled to do this. It's become my calling."

"Clearly, establishing financial stability will be our No. 1 short-term goal," Adkins says. "We've got to increase our earned income by selling more tickets." Um, time and time again, it's been proven that there is little income potential from ticket revenues.

Adkins, who is also mom to sons Jacob, 14, and Benjamin, 10, says she feels like she is in fighting trim to take on the gargantuan role of orchestra president, thanks to a relatively recent obsessive pursuit of exercise.

"I've become a bit of a nut about it," she admits.

Her regimen involves going to the Larry North gym four times a week, often working with a personal trainer. And what's on the iPod of the president of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra? Sting, Coldplay, U2, Black Eyed Peas, Adele and an Irish band called the Script.

Of her exercise regimen, she says, "Cardio is never my favorite, but I've been introduced to kickboxing, and that's quite an experience. I never really thought of exercise as being so empowering, but it does give me so much more energy."

That energy -- and sense of empowerment -- may serve Adkins well as she navigates the job. Obviously it hasn't helped very much as the orchestra (despite a $28 million increase in its endowment at the end of Koonsman's tenure) may be going from bad to worse. But look on the bright side. The current concessions are only half what management took away in 2010!
But I digress--a lot.

Bill Clay, Principal Bass

Only a week ago KERA News reported, Five years ago, Fort Worth Symphony players agreed to slash their salaries in tough financial times. Now, with new contract talks, they want those cuts restored. Bill Clay is the principal bass player with the Fort Worth Symphony and speaks for the players. “Our proposal has come down by over $1.25 million and management on the other hand hasn’t moved from their financial proposal since October,” Clay says. Two days ago, that same station offered this: The Fort Worth Symphony says it has issued its final offer and musicians will vote on it this week, but it’s not clear if they’ll accept it.

So it's yet another example of management taking the hard line and expecting the players (um...they're the ones making the music and racking up glorious reviews) to acquiesce. Just like the lockouts in Atlanta and Minnesota. Oh wait, neither of those turned out the way management intended. Chief executives were fired and the community won. But, but, but....it worked in Hartford after all!

The musicians of the FWSO are taking the issue into their own hands. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted that Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra musicians voted on Tuesday to authorize a strike after the symphony’s management said it planned to implement a “concessionary contract” this month. “The musicians of the Fort Worth Symphony met [Tuesday] afternoon for a strike authorization vote, and the vote was passed virtually unanimously,” said Scott Jessup, spokesman for the musicians union.
The vote does not call a strike but authorizes the union’s negotiating committee to do so.

FWSO pickets outside Bass Hall

This was brought about by the symphony's decision to implement a new contract on Monday with financial concessions including an 8.4 percent cut in total wages. “The difference with this latest offer is that the Symphony has stated that they will not bargain with us anymore by calling this their ‘last, best, and final,’ offer,” the union said in a statement. “Management says they will implement this offer on January 25, forcing us to work under the conditions they impose.”

Management has shot back with an immediate response, again blaming the economy. Adkins maintains that the symphony has comprehensive fundraising plans that are ongoing and targeted. And just because the city’s economy is growing, she said, that doesn’t necessarily mean more symphony supporters. Really? “We often had to beg and plead for money at the end of every year to balance the budget, and many of those year-end ‘angels’ are either gone or not able to do what they once did,” Adkins said.

American Federation of Musicians Local 72-147 Secretary-Treasurer Stewart Williams argues that symphony management does not have a sustainable financial plan and that cuts should not be necessary when the economy in Fort Worth is doing well. “The cuts didn’t fix the problem five years ago, and they’re not going to fix it now." Management should have put a plan into place five years ago to stabilize its operations, he said.

And Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya? As usual, mum's the word...

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article55995395.html#storylink=cpy

Only a couple of things can occur once one side or the other decides that it's no longer willing to sit at the table, and they don't amount to moving forward. Either management imposes a lockout (and again I have to note how well that hasn't worked) or, in fewer cases, the players strike. Such actions have threatened organizations such as the Chicago Symphony (very briefly) and the venerable Metropolitan Opera. In the latter, matters did get precariously close to the breaking point but federal mediation and the efforts of Peter Gelb (I can't believe I'm praising the guy) saved the day.

While the music hasn't died in the FWSO, it is only a matter of time. Again, there are no winners, only losers: the musicians and the community. Then there is any community pride and goodwill that might have been engendered since 1912.

It's the "vision thing" or, in this case, the lack of it.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article55570095.html#storylink=cpy