Summer is here! Well, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere…. Summer is almost always portrayed as a life-affirming season, if an occasionally lazy one, where life is to be savored to its fullest.
“Midsummer Eve,” c.1908 by Edward Robert Hughes
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I’m tempted to hang up a “Gone Fishin’” sign myself and run off to the lake… but instead, let me share a few classical works from a variety of genres that perfectly embody summer in all its hedonistic glory.
Cheers! Continue reading
Well… it’s déjà vu all over again. In fact, it’s so déjà vu all over again that there’s no point in trying to come up with a different cliché to describe what’s going on.
For those who had not heard, the management of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) has locked out its musicians, following a pattern of strong-arm tactics that has attempted by the leaders of several other classical music organizations all over the country.
At this juncture, it’s fair to wonder aloud why a management would attempt this same tactic. Famously, this bit of hard-ballism failed spectacularly in places like Minneapolis, Atlanta, and elsewhere. But it was more than just some tactical failure—again and again, as other voices/actors in the community really started paying attention, and began digging into the justification for the strong arm tactics, these justifications fell apart. Deeper analyses revealed that the managements’ positions were frequently built on shady finances, bad-faith negotiations, short-term thinking, and groupthink, and primarily driven by simple hostility to unions. Again and again, the realization that these various managements were being less than candid about their tactics and grand strategies led to a ferocious backlash from the community. And again and again, this community backlash led to the forced removal of the managements that tried to play hardball in the first place.
Simple self-preservation would suggest that managements would drop strong-armism as a tool in their toolkits.
Alas, this doesn’t seem to be the case.
I’ll be keeping my eye on this dispute as it unfolds—the eye of an interested outsider who has seen this play out way too many times before, and has lost all patience for this kind of nonsense.
On that note, a few comments about the self-serving message the BSO management sent out to the orchestra’s supporters. Continue reading
Curious. Once again, we’re hearing complaints that an arts organization—today, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO)—is not supporting itself strictly on ticket sales, and therefore needs to come up with a new business plan. Continue reading
Last week, an editorial came out in the Baltimore Sun that weighed in on the burgeoning labor dispute between the management of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and its musicians.
And I feel a response is necessary.
Let me say off the bat that I do not pretend to have any insider information into this dispute, and I have no direct ties with any of the parties involved. And I hardly want to start a fight with the Sun’s editorial staff—I readily concede that the editorial goes out of its way to point fingers and keep a measured tone. Curiously for an editorial, it doesn’t… well, editorialize.
And for me, that’s a bit of a problem. Maybe this reticence is due to the fact that they don’t want to call out anyone unless there are clear indications of misbehavior. Maybe they want to give everyone the benefit of a doubt. This is a noble sentiment. But one of the key frustrations with the Minnesota Orchestra dispute (which was happily resolved years ago, thank goodness) was that again and again, reporters and other observers relentlessly tried to push some form of “well on one hand, but on the other hand” balance in their descriptions about what was happening. There was such a dedication to the principle of “balance” that they ended up creating hugely inappropriate false equivalencies.
In my own mind this is artificial… and ultimately dangerous. There is a massive imbalance in a situation where one side of dispute has the power to make unilateral decisions to weaken the other side. There is a massive imbalance in a situation where one side is arguing in bad faith. There is a massive imbalance in a situation where one side is acting out of bounds, and engaging in destructive activities as a negation strategy. So, the editorial’s attempt to smooth everything over into a “he said/she said” kind of piece feels… off.
Let me explain. Continue reading
One of the recurring refrains of the many classical music labor disputes has been the need for the organization to cut costs. The imperative to save money—Save Money!—is widely regarded as self-evident, obvious and somehow immune to challenge. When an arts organization runs into financial trouble, there is a natural reaction among many in the community, and many from the ensemble’s leaders, to instinctively reach for the budget scissors as the first and only solution.
And now the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s (BSO) management is throwing their hat into the ring, with this same argument. They are (again!) making the case that they need to cut their way to prosperity.
From my own experience as an arts administrator, the former Board President of an important arts organization here in Minneapolis, and as keen observer of far too many classical music labor disputes, I say the following: although the mantra of budget cuts is a natural reaction, it may not be the best reaction. Why so? Just look at the instructive example of Howard Johnson’s. Lewis Carbone, a respected business consultant who was on hand during the HoJo’s tumultuous last days, has documented the fall of this once-mighty company and the lessons it provides about the dangers of prioritizing cost savings over a customer’s experience and satisfaction.
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