Author: DougR
Date: 2019-06-26 18:24
"Doubling down" is a very kind way to put what the BSO management is doing. They are going after all the musicians' livelihoods proactively, meaning cancelling bedrock protections (disability and life insurance, which SHOULD remain in place during any sort of negotiation, unless you're trying to actively encourage current musicians to leave the orchestra). The naked threat here is management cancelling or curtailing anything they can to instill terror in the musicians.
I think at this point it's a race between the BSO management's cruelty (I'll use the word, you may disagree) on the one hand, and community outrage on the other. The community (the governor, state legislators, and community leaders) need to be mobilized to hold the BSO management to some sort of accountability for the wholesale abandonment of their duty to maintain the orchestra in any qualitatively meaningful form, and the abandonment (and possible double-dealing) around the legislature's recently appropriated $3-million rescue package. Community outrage is what turned the tide in the Minnesota Orchestra lockout, and it can hopefully work here as well.
As to Ms. Alsop, I'm hopeful she'll do right by the musicians. I have seen her conduct exactly twice: once many years ago, when she conducted the Columbia, MD, symphony (essentially a community orchestra) and once recently in NYC when she conducted a short run of West Side Story in Brooklyn (featuring the very finest NYC pit players, many of whom also play in prestigious orchestral settings). I imagine she's feeling a lot of pressure to do ... something.
Here's a newish take on the BSO situation from an informed observer; there is much deep diving to do into the BSO's actual financials to verify management's claims, as this account stresses. Above all, this is no way for third-rate mis-managers to treat concert artists of world-class quality.
https://songofthelarkblog.com/2019/06/18/the-baltimore-symphony-three-strikes-and-youre-out/
Me, I'm off to surf the web to find the BSO's musician-donation page.
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