Curtain Falls on San Jose Symphony

After a severe financial crisis of at least two years, the San Jose
Symphony administration shut down the orchestra Monday evening in such a
hurry that music director Leonid Grin found out the news from SF Classical
Voice when asked for comment.  Grin first said "I hope the community will
support us," then - realizing that he doesn't know exactly what is
happening - he said he doesn't wish to comment.  The announcement said the
board decided "to restructure (the Symphony's) operations in an effort to
save the 123-year-old orchestra."

Reached by telephone in Austria, where he is conducting the Bruckner
Orchestra of Linz, Grin has been traveling, out of touch with the office
since his last contact with the Symphony's acting CEO, Dick Gourley.  "We
talked on Thursday," Gourley later told SFCV, "and he knew how bad the
situation was, but I haven't been able to reach him yet to say what the
board decided late Friday." Apparently, the miscommunication was just a
matter of logistics.

What the board of directors realized on Friday was that meeting the $65,000
staff payroll on Oct.  15 will leave no more money for that budget item of
the $7.8-million organization.  "We told the staff that we cannot pay them
the next time and it's up to them if they want to continue working.  Nobody
was fired." Gourley himself has been running the Symphony as a volunteer.
The next hurdle for the temporarily self-suspended organization is to pay
the musicians $135,000 on Friday.  The board will meet the day before to
deal with the problem.  Gourley said the orchestra will be paid, possibly
not in full, and then the musicians too will be told that their next
payroll cannot be guaranteed - leaving them with the option of
participating in future activities without being paid, partially paid
or (unlikely) fully compensated.

After financial problems of at least a decade, the San Jose Symphony went
into a crisis mode even before the dot-com bubble burst right here, in the
heart of Silicon Valley.  The organization had a shortfall of $2.9 million
recently, worked its way back to $2.5 million - and then came Sept.  11.
"We just went through the fiscal quarter beginning July 1, breaking even,
and then came the terrorist attack.  Immediately, contributions dried up,
we stopped getting pledges and payments on previous pledges," Gourley said.

What of the future? Gourley is hoping for the orchestra surviving, smaller
in size, giving fewer concerts ("and more relevant to the area"), getting
continued support from the community, especially if the technology sector
and the economy at large recover fast enough.  "It's very sad," Gourley
said, "especially when we all need music more than ever before.  But right
now, how can you go to a corporation laying off its own employees to ask
for contributions to the Symphony?"."

Janos Gereben/SF
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