The Seattle Weekly has printed an article centering around the “one-woman law firm” of Brenda Little and her lawsuit against Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony on behalf of violinist Peter Kaman. Read the entire article here.

Here’s a tidbit: [Read more →]

David Stabler found this article from yesterday’s Seattle P-I, written by guest columnist Bernard Jacobsen (who I remember as the program annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra back in the early ’90s). I’m not sure why the classical music writer(s) for the P-I and its sister publication the Times were not able to write what Jacobsen has, but I’m not in the newspaper business.

Here’s his summation:

All the acrimony is the more regrettable at a time when the orchestra’s budget is balanced, its subscription base has expanded vastly under Schwarz’s leadership, it is one of the few U.S. orchestras active in the recording field, and its artistic standards are higher than ever, and comparable with any to be found among the competition. “Much of the orchestra’s success,” Wakin and Oestreich concede, “can be attributed to its conductor.” It is a pity that that acknowledgement should have been buried in an altogether too public and altogether too negatively insinuating washing of a few frustrated people’s dirty linen.

In the upcoming Sunday edition of the New York Times, several letters are printed in the Arts section - you can read the complete letters (as printed) here.

Here are some of the best parts of some of them: [Read more →]

The New York Times today published an article of not insignificant length dedicated to the Seattle Symphony and its intense level of discord between its musicians and its music director and conductor Gerard Schwarz. [Read more →]

Crosscut Seattle reports:

Seattle Symphony conductor and music director Gerard Schwarz broke his left leg and ankle last Thursday in a skiing accident. He faces surgery later this week, the SSO reports, with full recovery expected.