"The Music That Brings Us Together," the Modesto Symphony's adverting
slogan, is not doing its magic these days.  Concerts are cancelled,
musicians don't show up for a pops concert, the orchestra is now officially
on strike, and the season - 21 performances of nine programs - is in
grave jeopardy.

Just as in a troubled marriage, bad relations between an orchestra
management and the musicians do not come from a single source, but even
from a distance of 80 miles, a San Francisco perspective is "been there,
done that." The basic problem in Modesto seems to be what the San Francisco
Symphony faced seven years ago: lack of communications, an increasingly
hostile environment.  Beyond budget, salaries (an average of $4,000 a
year), hours, schedules released in advance, and all the other existing,
and very real, issues, what apparently ails this rather large and historic
orchestra is the lack of sufficient, minimal trust to resolve problems.

Christopher Durham, the chief union negotiator, tells the Modesto Bee
(which is providing extensive coverage) that since the orchestra voted
to join the American Federation of Musicians last year, there have been
17 bargaining sessions with management, including seven in the presence
of a Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service official.  And yet, he
and the union membership saw no alternative to a strike.  Symphony board
president Carl Boyett declares that meeting union demands may mean
bankruptcy for the association.

MSO executive director Camille Reed sees the strike "not (as) your
normal everyday variety," but rather "a bullet directly in the heart of
the strength of this extraordinary 72-year-old institution." The action,
she says, "has devastated and shocked this orchestra and its community."

Beyond the usual labor-situation hyperboles, there is that communication
issue thwarting Daryl One, the orchestra's seventh music director, to
open his third season.  With musicians drawn from all over the Bay Area's
other orchestras, music groups, and music faculties, advance scheduling
of rehearsals and concerts is a vital point of information.  This is,
obviously to everyone, a body of musical "gypsies," who can make a living
only by combining a number of jobs.  And yet, instead of open talks to
resolve a practical issue, there is only mutual mud-slinging, joined by
members of the community.  Some among them appear to resent the very
fact of musical carpetbaggers, even though unwilling to consider the
only (albeit impossible) alternative: full-time employment.

Bee reader Lee Sturgill minces no words: "The gall of this group,
80% of whom are from the Bay Area and Sacramento, to leave some 4,000
would-be spectators stranded without music!" His solution: fire them
all, "much like what then-President Reagan did with the defiant air
traffic controllers." This is the kind of thing that happens when
there is no music to bring people together.

 [From www.sfcv.org]

Janos Gereben/SF
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