#deafeningsilence

The email came on Thursday, with the subject line "ASO Concert Cancelation Reminder" (their spelling, not mine.)

Dear Valued Patron,
This is a reminder that all ASO concerts scheduled for this weekend are canceled. We will continue to update you each week, however up-to-date information can also be found on our website at www.aso.org.
Questions?  Subscribers, call 404.733.4800.  Single Tickets holders, call 404.733.5000.
Thank you for your support of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra!

There is nothing in this email that conveyed *why* the concerts are cancelled; it might have been a problem with the HVAC, or a nasty outbreak of norovirus in the string section.  The fact of the matter is that Woodruff Arts Center leadership has locked the players out for the second time in two years.

The last time, the players took large pay cuts, 10 weeks were cut from the season, and the size of the orchestra was reduced, from 95 to 88.  Now Stanley Romanstein, the President of the ASO, is asking for increasing contributions by the musicians to health insurance costs which will mean further reductions in salary and -- more alarmingly -- the final say on whether or not vacancies in the orchestra will be filled.

So far, the musicians are winning the public relations battle.  On Facebook, the ASO has resorted to deleting and disabling comments.  Bloggers, including Minneapolis blogger Scott Chamberlain, has done a great job of covering events in Atlanta.  In the last few days both both music director Robert Spano and principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles have made strong public statements in support of the musicians and expressing their fear that Atlanta is at risk of losing its world-class symphony orchestra.  Last Thursday, on what should have been opening night, a large protest occurred across from the Arts Center.

Two years ago, the musicians made major concessions.  I thought -- and clearly the players thought --  that with those concessions management would do what they needed to do to address the fiscal issues by increasing revenue.  In 2012 Romanstein told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that "the ASO can't raise more money through donations until it balances its budget. Donors have made it clear, he said: Fix the finances, then talk to us about increasing our support."  This seems to be the playbook.  As long as the orchestra is in the red -- and it is reportedly still running a 2 million dollar deficit -- the onus is on the musicians to make concessions until the orchestra is in the black.

The problem is, by then, I don't know what will be left.

Symphony orchestras need financial support, and Stanley Romanstein et al. should have been working on that for the last two years.  Their failure to do anything of the sort suggests that maybe the symphony and the Arts Center need to think about the quality of leadership at the helm.

I know Romanstein et al. don't care what I think, but there are people in this city who they do care about, and I hope those people are paying attention to what's happening.  This city was outraged with the Atlanta Braves decided to become the Cobb County Braves, and we're supporting the building of a new football stadium for a very wealthy NFL team owner.  Will we let the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra be lost?

This is a defining moment for out city.  I'm hopeful that the people who can do it will do the right thing, and in the end, I think that will have to include new leadership that sees their job as strengthening the symphony, not decimating it.