Category: music

The executive director of the organization that oversees the newly formed Sacramento Symphony has resigned, and is accusing the Metropolitan Music Center of mismanaging funds and playing fast and loose with business ethics. Rachel Lewis also insists that she never signed the musicians’ checks which bounced following the orchestra’s opening concert, and further claims that she tried to convince the MMC to cancel the concert due to a shortage of funds for payroll. The MMC’s board of directors is vehemently denying all of Lewis’s charges.

Questions about the ethics and business practices of the Sacramento Symphony and its parent organization were first raised two weeks ago, when a newspaper investigation concluded that the MMC was “falsely claiming association with several prominent artists and support from local businesses and organizations.”

The newly rekindled San Antonio Symphony held an outdoor concert last week aimed at the city’s Hispanic population, and (almost) nobody came. Yes, it was a broiling-hot day, but Mike Greenberg suggests that the SAS may be trying to attract new audience members without making a real commitment to the most basic audience-building technique. “A Mexican American doesn’t have to make any more of a cultural ‘leap’ to the symphony than does a German or Polish or Italian American… [But] to build an audience for the long term, the symphony needs to take a long-term view of its educational and outreach missions, and I don’t think it’s done that very well.”

Shaft Chamber No. 41 is not a particularly glamorous name for a concert hall, but for the Donbass Symphony Orchestra, the cavernous shaft sunk 200 meters deep in a salt mine in eastern Ukraine made a fine space for its debut concert. “Instead of cocktail dresses and dinner jackets, most of the audience were dressed in winter coats. The temperature underground was a chilly 14 degrees Celsius.”

Following the lead of the nation’s major orchestras, the musicians and management of the Florida Orchestra have agreed to continue working towards a new collective bargaining agreement despite the expiration of the musicians’ current deal. The orchestra’s current base salary is roughly $24,000 for a 31-week season.

Madison’s new Overture Center for the Arts, designed by Cesar Pelli and built at a cost of $205 million (all of which was paid by a single donor,) has opened its main concert hall with a performance by the Chicago Symphony, and if musician reaction is any indication, the little university town in Wisconsin has constructed one of the country’s great concert halls. “Several CSO players reported that they could hear themselves and each other with greater clarity than at perhaps any hall they have played… Pelli and Chicago-based acousticians Kirkegaard Associates have created a beautiful, bright and open auditorium with a feel of intimacy far exceeding that of the much smaller 1,500-seat Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago’s Millennium Park.”

Ever since Peter Oundjian was appointed music director of the Toronto Symphony, questions have abounded about whether the hometown kid and relative newcomer to conducting really has enough game to lead one of North America’s top ensembles. Oundjian clearly isn’t lacking in confidence, however, and his first programs with the TSO featured Beethoven’s 7th and Mahler’s 1st, two of the most well-worn staples of the romantic era. The result, according to William Littler, was not unimpressive, but “bravery is not a synonym for wisdom,” and Toronto may need to have some patience with its still-developing conductor.

Orchestras everywhere love to talk about their commitment to music education. But the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has taken the unusual step of adopting a specific school where the music program was in danger. Last year, Wilkinsburg High School didn’t even have enough instruments for the kids who had signed up for band. Then the PSO, which already had a relationship with the school, showed up and played a benefit concert, raising $17,000 for the music program. The orchestra is repeating the benefit this year, with the aim of solidifying music as a core component of the school’s curriculum.

The Minnesota Orchestra has become the latest major ensemble to extend its current musicians’ contract so that negotiations may continue without a work stoppage. The contract was set to expire on October 1. In stark contrast to the acrimonious tone surrounding some other negotiations, the orchestra’s president characterized the talks as “warm” and “collegial,” and the musicians have agreed to “play and talk” indefinitely, rather than setting a new end date for the current contract. [Disclosure notice: ArtsJournal’s assistant editor is a musician with the Minnesota Orchestra.]

“The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra has undergone a remarkable turnaround from its recent financial troubles, as its board announced this week a balanced budget and an operating surplus following the 2003-2004 season. Last year, at the end of the 2002-2003 season, the symphony had a debt of more than $3 million. It has now retired that debt and recorded an operating surplus of $111,538… The symphony board also announced a commitment to restoring lost income to its staff and musicians, who took a pay cut last year to help the company regain its financial footing.”