Check out this story by LA Times classical music critic Mark Swed, then come back and let’s talk.
I wish that journalists were given the time and space to fully explore the ideas that they either come up with or which are assigned to them by their editors. Since not every music critic gets to write for the New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly, 3000 word stories are the very rare exception. Mark Swed may have tried to follow a balanced line, but (as he’s done in the past in review describing members of the Pacific Symphony as ‘greedy’ because they followed the legal language of their contract) he failed miserably and comes out swinging against the musicians and stays there for much of this article. It’s a story, and one with little regard for the facts – he makes generalizations about the orchestras he writes about (Seattle, Baltimore, Philadelphia) without giving any real depth of background – he never asks why the orchestras got into the the terrible situations he describes in the first place. He might have written a very beneficial article which would have done a great public service by looking for the common threads that caused these fine orchestras to go off the rails, but instead we get tabloid speculation and general disdain for the musicians’ side of the story. In writing any factual essay, one must be cognizant of the fact that one might start with one point of view, and after careful research and interviews, end up at another. Mr. Swed seems to have started and ended at the same place, most likely due to a lack of careful research or interviews of the gamut of personalities involved.
I have to say that the musicians’ union (American Federation of Musicians or AFM) often gets a bad rap. Most unions have since they gained any real power in this country, and not without reason. It’s tempting to have one’s thoughts stray to On the Waterfront or other such tales of corrupt and evil union bosses oppressing their helpless and hapless flocks of sidemen – the media continues to push this view, and thus the management agenda gets much more play than that of the workers. The fact is, the musicians union has done much to make orchestras vibrant and viable parts of countless communities. We’ve fought long and hard to make living wages possible, for safe working conditions, and to make the process of termination and/or probation as fair and humane as possible. Without these things an orchestra ceases to become a destination, and becomes a revolving-door stepping-stone to better ensembles. Continuity is lost, and the orchestra suffers both artistically and financially. The same can be said for the management and staff – the longer we retain the best minds in the industry, the better off we will be.
That having been said, we musicians may be in danger of drinking our own Kool Aid (if only well-diluted). It’s tempting push our agenda heedless of the financial facts that scream that the opposite course, or at least a staying of the course, would be much, much more prudent. The long institutional memory of the union, as protected and sustained by our most senior members, is our most valuable resource, but it is also our most dangerous double-edged sword. Indeed, it is a Sword of Damocles, with our own success at negotiating on our own behalf threatening our gravest harm as the institution as a whole suffers as a result. It gets too easy to see ourselves as the only important part of the institutional puzzle, and we lose sight of the effects of our action. The fact is, no orchestra can function without its three major constituent parts: board, musicians, and staff. Each part has its own area of responsibility and expertise, and should work hard both to educate the other parts as to their own importance, and to understand how the other parts work to support each other. Equilibrium such as this is vital, and hard to achieve, but without it, we see the financial, artistic, and public-relations disasters that have befallen Baltimore, Seattle and Philadelphia.
Understanding and empathy are powerful tools, and as Sam Bergman suggests in a post on MyAuditions.com, orchestras who have good, open lines of communication along with strong interconnecting parts that work well together don’t make the news because of public relations disasters. If the musicians see themselves as the only guardians capable of protecting their high artistic standards, you get the Philadelphia scenario. If the musicians see themselves as powerless and oppressed and ignored, you get the Seattle scenario. If the musicians see their livelihood being flushed down the toilet while they’re standing around helplessly, you get the Baltimore scenario.
What is often lost in the discussion about orchestras is that success or failure does not necessarily fall at the feet of the musicians. At the Oregon Symphony we had quantitatively lower artistic standard 10 years ago, but much larger audiences at all of our concerts. Today, the orchestra is at a high water mark artistically, but we are struggling to get butts in seats and enough donations to make us financially viable for the long term. Though we often talk around the water cooler as if we could do a better job than those in the front office, the truth is, the vast majority of us could not. We’re trained to do one thing very well: to play music on our chosen instrument(s). I don’t have an MBA, or marketing experience, or an understanding of business models or any of the other stuff that someone engaged in running a major arts organization should have a good understanding of. And while there are management personnel who have been on the other side of the organizational chart as orchestral musicians, the majority don’t have an intimate knowledge of what we really do on a day-to-day basis. The same goes for the board members.
But, the musicians are the public face of the organization – we’re the ones on stage for the public to see. When there are tensions about money, and the costs are examined, we’re the largest single budget item on the balance sheet. It becomes easy for an uninformed public to blame us for the costs that we’re incurring in public negotiations of our CBA. However, it must be said that we cannot get anything that management isn’t willing to give us. When there is poor communication and incomplete understanding in an organization, both “sides” can ask for too much, or give too much, and end up in a place that invites further conflict and ultimately, meltdown, in the form of a strike or lockout. After such an event takes place, it takes years, if ever, for the institution to again reach equilibrium and make progress.
I wish that the Swed article had been less of an editorial and more of an exploration of the root causes of the highly publicized troubles that have taken place at a handful of orchestras. It may inspire some good conversations amongst orchestral stakeholders, but it will also reinforce preconceptions that have little basis in reality and educating board members, audiences and donors will only be more difficult.