{"id":674,"date":"2008-01-19T00:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-19T08:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/19\/columbus-lost-at-sea\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:32:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:32:52","slug":"columbus-lost-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/19\/columbus-lost-at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"columbus lost at sea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a move which will likely result in the permanent crippling of a once fine orchestra, the management of the Columbus Symphony (Ohio) is proposing massive cuts of both orchestra personnel positions and the length of the season: the former down from 53 to 31 full-time musicians, the latter from 46 to 34 weeks.<\/p>\n

The restructuring plan is designed to get the symphony on firm financial footing and ensure its survival.”This is to try to save the orchestra and enable us to grow it into something special,” said Robert “Buzz” Trafford, chairman of the symphony board.<\/p>\n

Trafford presented the proposal yesterday to six musicians. The group walked out about 45 minutes into the meeting when they learned how many musicians would be let go under the plan.<\/p>\n

“We feel completely betrayed,” said Jim Akins, principal tuba player and chairman of the orchestra committee, which represents the musicians in meetings with management.<\/p>\n

“For the past two years, we’ve given this board all our support. But this proposed plan was done outside of any collaboration or consultation with musicians,” Akins said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is especially dismaying about this news is that the musicians had already borne a large part of the financial “solutions” imposed to date in the form of reduced salaries, benefits, and the length of the season. It puzzles me that in this day and age, with the dessicated corpses of a number of formerly fine orchestras lying by the side of the road in this country, that draconian cuts of this size and scope would be viewed as a legitimate strategy to save an orchestra.<\/p>\n

It’s like having your horses escape from the barn, then burning down the barn to keep it from happening again. Idiotic, stupid, short-sighted, and monumentally stupid – that’s what this action is.<\/p>\n

But it’s the easy way to go for a board and administration that clearly doesn’t see anything wrong with their failed management policies over the last decade. It takes guts to look yourself and your team in the eye and actually look at what you’ve done right and wrong, and set a new course. In this case the CSO team decided that the size of the orchestra and the size of the season were solely responsible for the financial difficulties of the orchestra.<\/p>\n

I’ll be interested to see how well they manage to raise funds for a dismembered torso of an orchestra that they have left – barely a chamber orchestra<\/em> at 31 members – cut by 42 percent<\/em>, and with a season cut by nearly 24 percent<\/em>! I don’t think that patrons will be lining up at the door to support what’s left over from this massacre.<\/p>\n

With the Jacksonville debacle barely settled (and so needlessly badly handled), this latest travesty really makes me wonder what the state of the arts truly is in this country. Especially the state of orchestra administrators, who seem to need no real knowledge of either finance or music to run multi-million dollar musical institutions. I’d bet that when these cuts go through the next headline will be about the CSO’s executive director getting a better-paid, higher-profile job with another orchestra. It’s almost as though you’re rewarded by the League of American Orchestras for doing the most damage to an institution, or at least that’s the way it appears as we watch orchestra after orchestra suffer from ineffective and ineffectual leadership, especially at the middle-tier level.<\/p>\n

This news just makes me sick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a move which will likely result in the permanent crippling of a once fine orchestra, the management of the Columbus Symphony (Ohio) is proposing massive cuts of both orchestra personnel positions and the length of the season: the former down from 53 to 31 full-time musicians, the latter from 46 to 34 weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[186,115,2],"tags":[349,112,3663,55,62],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labor-issues","category-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-columbus-symphony","tag-management","tag-musicians","tag-orchestra","tag-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-aS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":725,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/30\/columbus-symphony-musicians-respond\/","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":0},"title":"columbus symphony musicians respond","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Columbus Symphony musicians have issued a formal response to the planned cuts of both season and personnel by the Columbus Symphony Association. Central Ohio Federation of Musicians Local 103, AFM 1585 Bethel Road, Suite 100 Columbus, Ohio 43220 614-457-6371 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 29, 2008 HUNDREDS FROM AROUND THE\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":965,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/13\/columbus-symphony-circling-the-drain\/","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":1},"title":"columbus symphony circling the drain?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The news from Columbus seems to be getting more dire by the day, and those with the power to change the situation seem unwilling to do so (or to be charitable, unable to do so). Here's a collection of posts from around the classical blogosphere concerning the situation in Columbus\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":865,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/18\/cso-musicians-management-begin-talks\/","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":2},"title":"cso musicians & management begin talks","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Columbus Dispatch reports that the Columbus Symphony musicians and management met at the negotiating table today for the first time since proposed cuts of musicians and weeks of the season (by 22 musicians and 12 weeks, respectively) were first presented to the musicians on January 17, 2008 (a presentation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":815,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/27\/columbus-recording-its-own-memorial\/","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":3},"title":"columbus recording its own memorial","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sad, but true: Douglas Fisher Member, Columbus Symphony Orchestra President, Local 103, AFM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 26, 2008 Columbus Symphony Musicians Vote To Allow Live Recording Next week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Columbus Symphony Orchestra program will be recorded live for the international recording company Denon, which will release it on compact disc.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":734,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/04\/columbus-a-personal-view\/","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":4},"title":"columbus – a personal view","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This past Sunday's Columbus Dispatch profiles three musicians from the troubled Columbus Symphony: principal trumpeter Justin Bartels, violinist Joyce Fishman, and principal flutist Randy Hester. Here's the set up from the article, the complete version of which you can read here: If the Columbus Symphony -- facing a $1.5 million\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":943,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/25\/columbus-symphony-musicians-reject-final-offer\/","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":5},"title":"columbus symphony musicians reject ‘final offer’","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It appears that we may be on the verge of whatever will happen in Columbus, if this results in an impasse. Press release from the CSO musicians' web site: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 25, 2008 Columbus Symphony Musicians Unanimously Vote to Reject Board's \"Final Offer\" Last night, the members of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}