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When musicians leave, who's responsible?
Philadelphia Orchestra on the brink
Robert Zaller
Today's mail brought a notice of the Philadelphia Orchestra's bankruptcy hearing, which coincides with the opening of the new season. It also brought Peter Dobrin's story in the Inquirer (Aug. 13) about the pending departure of the Orchestra's principal trumpet, the splendid David Bilger, who has accepted a two-year teaching post in Georgia.
Bilger isn't completely out the door—yet. But principal clarinetist Ricardo Morales (to the New York Philharmonic), associate concertmaster José Maria Blumenschein (WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne), cellist Efe Baltacigil (Seattle Symphony Orchestra), and violist Stephen Wyrczynski (Indiana University) are. Other Orchestra members are retiring.
This isn't the customary turnover of any large ensemble. This is a hemorrhage. As Dobrin puts it, with no little restraint, "It's time to be extremely concerned."
Assertion or abdication?
It's also time for board reorganization and new leadership. The 70 Orchestra board members who voted for bankruptcy represented not an assertion but an abdication of leadership. Five voted against bankruptcy: the musician representatives. Their number was far too few to sway the lemmings who fell into line with the board's president, Richard B. Worley, and the Orchestra's CEO, Allison Vulgamore.
What kind of organization needs a 75-member board? Responsibility on a group that size is so dispersed that no single member feels that his or her vote is really consequential. And if the rationale is that board members are also Orchestra contributors, that argument falls in the making: If those contributions were truly sustaining, or if the members were successful fund-raisers among their social and financial peers, presumably a vote on bankruptcy would be unnecessary.
Of course, as some suggest, the Orchestra's alleged plight may be simply a ruse designed to break its long-term pension commitments. But if those commitments are indeed unsustainable, the place to revisit them is at the bargaining table. The courts shouldn't be a party to a willful breach of contract. And the musicians have already made significant concessions.
This sounds familiar
As with the case of the recent debt ceiling fiasco in Washington, there is reason to suspect that this crisis has been manufactured. The Pew Charitable Trusts declined a funding appeal from the Orchestra. So did the philanthropist Raymond Perelman and his recently deceased wife Ruth. These are the same so-called civic leaders who concocted the Barnes Foundation's move from its Merion home to its new digs on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. In both cases, a highly dubious claim of insolvency was raised. In both cases, the character, constitution and public function of a core cultural institution was deliberately put at risk.
Worley and Vulgamore have surely discredited themselves and betrayed the trust of the Orchestra's supporters and the public. But a thorough reorganization of the board is also necessary. Bilger, in his comments to Dobrin, quotes a "vocal" board member as saying that the Orchestra's musicians will have to accept whatever terms are offered them in the bankruptcy proceedings because they have no place else to go. No place else but New York, Seattle, Georgia, Cologne...
They can go, they will go. They are going. But it isn't the musicians who should be leaving. The arrogant fools who are ruining the creation of Stokowski, Ormandy and Muti should be walking the plank instead.♦
To read a response, click here.
Bilger isn't completely out the door—yet. But principal clarinetist Ricardo Morales (to the New York Philharmonic), associate concertmaster José Maria Blumenschein (WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne), cellist Efe Baltacigil (Seattle Symphony Orchestra), and violist Stephen Wyrczynski (Indiana University) are. Other Orchestra members are retiring.
This isn't the customary turnover of any large ensemble. This is a hemorrhage. As Dobrin puts it, with no little restraint, "It's time to be extremely concerned."
Assertion or abdication?
It's also time for board reorganization and new leadership. The 70 Orchestra board members who voted for bankruptcy represented not an assertion but an abdication of leadership. Five voted against bankruptcy: the musician representatives. Their number was far too few to sway the lemmings who fell into line with the board's president, Richard B. Worley, and the Orchestra's CEO, Allison Vulgamore.
What kind of organization needs a 75-member board? Responsibility on a group that size is so dispersed that no single member feels that his or her vote is really consequential. And if the rationale is that board members are also Orchestra contributors, that argument falls in the making: If those contributions were truly sustaining, or if the members were successful fund-raisers among their social and financial peers, presumably a vote on bankruptcy would be unnecessary.
Of course, as some suggest, the Orchestra's alleged plight may be simply a ruse designed to break its long-term pension commitments. But if those commitments are indeed unsustainable, the place to revisit them is at the bargaining table. The courts shouldn't be a party to a willful breach of contract. And the musicians have already made significant concessions.
This sounds familiar
As with the case of the recent debt ceiling fiasco in Washington, there is reason to suspect that this crisis has been manufactured. The Pew Charitable Trusts declined a funding appeal from the Orchestra. So did the philanthropist Raymond Perelman and his recently deceased wife Ruth. These are the same so-called civic leaders who concocted the Barnes Foundation's move from its Merion home to its new digs on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. In both cases, a highly dubious claim of insolvency was raised. In both cases, the character, constitution and public function of a core cultural institution was deliberately put at risk.
Worley and Vulgamore have surely discredited themselves and betrayed the trust of the Orchestra's supporters and the public. But a thorough reorganization of the board is also necessary. Bilger, in his comments to Dobrin, quotes a "vocal" board member as saying that the Orchestra's musicians will have to accept whatever terms are offered them in the bankruptcy proceedings because they have no place else to go. No place else but New York, Seattle, Georgia, Cologne...
They can go, they will go. They are going. But it isn't the musicians who should be leaving. The arrogant fools who are ruining the creation of Stokowski, Ormandy and Muti should be walking the plank instead.♦
To read a response, click here.
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