Detailed account of meeting with CSO Board, January 17, 2008

Detailed account of meeting with the CSO Board, January 17, 2008

This is the first detailed entry to this timeline since the Musicians agreed in May, 2005 to accept salary and benefit cuts of $1.3 million in exchange for the Symphony Board's promise to hire experienced and qualified people to fill key Management vacancies and to use this donation from the Musicians as the keystone part of a financial stabilization plan.

Last month it became apparent to the Musicians that both of the Board's promises had been broken as evidenced in the official audit report from the 2006-07 season. The report indicated a record one-year loss of nearly $2.2 million, with about $10.4 million in income and $12.6 million in expense. This result occurred during the first full season of Management leadership by first-time Executive Director Tony Beadle who had previously held a variety of lesser Management positions with several orchestras.

Mr. Beadle informed the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Committee (CSOC) that he and a few Board members wished to meet with the entire orchestra to discuss the financial situation. The CSOC consists of five Musicians who are elected by the entire Orchestra to act as a liaison between the Management and Board, and the Labor Union which represents the Musicians in contract negotiations and enforcement. Due to the stated purpose of the meeting, the CSOC decided that it was appropriate to meet with Mr. Beadle and Board members first, before meeting with the whole Orchestra. The CSOC invited Douglas Fisher, who is a member of the Orchestra and also President of the Musicians' Local Labor Union to attend.

Less than half an hour before the meeting, which occurred on January 17, 2008, Mr. Fisher received a message from the Columbus Dispatch informing him that they had already met with Symphony representatives and received a comprehensive written plan outlining their vision of the Orchestra's future. They informed him that they would run a front-page story the next day and wanted quotes from him in response to the plan. The Dispatch refused to provide him with any of the plan details explaining that they had agreed to the Symphony representative's specific request to not tell him anything in advance of the meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Fisher challenged the deliberate decision by CSO Board Chair, Robert "Buzz" Trafford, who is the managing partner of the Porter Wright Morris & Arthur law firm, to secretly create a long term plan without the participation of the Musicians, the largest constituency group of the orchestra with the deepest and most accurate institutional memory. Mr. Trafford responded that the Columbus Symphony Orchestra belongs to the community and that he had consulted with members of the community in the creation of the Board's plan. He also said that he had consulted with some Musicians, but it was later learned that none of them knew anything about the Board's plan. Furthermore, the CSOC is the only group which is authorized to speak on behalf of the Musicians in accordance with the contract between the Board and the Union.

Mr. Fisher also challenged his decision to announce their unilateral plan to the media before discussing it with the Musicians. Mr. Trafford explained that the timing was due to his schedule of appointments that day and he never explained why they had to announce their plan to the Columbus Dispatch on that particular day.

Mr. Trafford then began a monologue presentation of the Board's plan. About thirty minutes into his speech he began to talk about Musician wages and working conditions which are governed by the contract, which expires at the end of this August. When he announced the Board's intention to fire 22 of the 53 full-time Musicians at the end of the contract, Mr. Fisher told him that they had heard enough and led the CSOC out of the room.

The front-page story in the Dispatch, which outlined in detail the Board's plans to not only fire 22 Musicians, but to exact a nearly 30% cut in salary and benefits from those remaining, quickly spread throughout the country and the world. Within days, the Musicians received press inquires from all over the country and from Europe. Musicians from all over the world contacted them through a wide variety of means. None of them could believe the Board's plans and all expressed sympathy that the Musicians are dealing at the present time with such ignorance, negligence, and incompetence from the Board and Management.

Experts in the industry have written extensively about the Board's plan on various internet sites, which are linked below, and have concluded that the Orchestra's financial situation is symptomatic of the true problem, a failure of governance by the Board.

Norman Lebrecht ( http://www.normanlebrecht.com )

Goodbye, Columbus
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2008/01/goodbye_columbus.html

Drew McManus, Orchestra Management Consultant

January 21, 2008
Junichi Hirokami: Leading From The Front In Columbus
http://www.adaptistration.com/adaptistration/2008/01/junichi-hirokam.html

January 22, 2008
Back To The Future In Columbus
http://www.adaptistration.com/adaptistration/2008/01/back-to-the-fut.html

January 24, 2008
Examining Dynamic Reactions At Columbus
http://www.adaptistration.com/adaptistration/2008/01/examining-dynam.html

January 28, 2008
A Conductor's View Of The Orchestra: Junichi Hirokami
http://www.adaptistration.com/adaptistration/2008/01/a-conductors-vi.html#more

Robert Levine, Chairman Emeritus, International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians
Principal Viola, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

January 19, 2008
Columbus schedules a disaster
http://theafmobserver.typepad.com/abu_bratsche/2008/01/columbus-schedu.html

January 21 , 2008
Mercury rising in Columbus
http://theafmobserver.typepad.com/abu_bratsche/2008/01/mercury-rising.html

Charles Noble, Assistant Principal Viola, Oregon Symphony Orchestra

January 19, 2008
Columbus lost at sea?
http://www.nobleviola.com/wordpress/2008/01/19/columbus-lost-at-sea/