"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 [log in to unmask]