DOS Orchestra #6 - 25 July 94

News from the world of professional orchestras.
Copyright 1994, International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians

Topics

Boston Symphony Hires New Artistic Administrator

The Boston Symphony has hired Anthony Fogg as artistic administrator, replacing Evans Mirageas, who left in December to become director of artists and repertory for London-Decca Records.

Fogg comes to the BSO from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, where he is head of programming. The ABC oversees orchestras in Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide, West Australia and Tasmania. Fogg has also served as artistic director of the Seymour Group, a contemporary-music ensemble, and in similar positions with the Adelaide Festival and the Musica Nova Festival in Brisbane.

Fogg trained as a pianist at the University of Sydney and the Brazilian Academy of Music in Sao Paolo. He has appeared as soloist with many of the Australian orchestras.

Fogg will join the BSO staff in October.

Chicago Symphony Issues $50 Million of Tax-Exempt Bonds

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has become the first orchestra to issue long-term, tax-exempt bonds. On June 22, the Illinois Development Finance Authority issued $50 million Variable/Fixed Rate Demand Revenue Bonds to finance the acquisition of Orchestra Hall's adjacent properties and the first two years of expenditures for the Chicago Symphony's expansion project. First Chicago Capital Markets is underwriter of the bonds, which are supported by a letter of credit issued by The Northern Trust Company and The Sanwa Bank. The 35-year, tax-exempt bonds currently operate in a floating rate mode. According to CSO management, "despite a volatile market, the bonds were well received and fully subscribed by institutional buyers."

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's expansion and renovation project, estimated to cost between $90 and $100 million, will renovate 90-year-old Orchestra Hall and expand the Orchestra's facilities west to Wabash. Plans include improving acoustics, enlarging the stage, and adding artistic support spaces. Patron amenities include more comfortable seats, lounges and a restaurant. The additional space also will allow for on-site education projects, listening and video viewing areas, an archives and an exhibition space.

In addition to the monies raised from the bond issuance and pledged from the Facilities Fund, a major capital campaign is being mounted to raise unrestricted funds.

Houston Symphony Negotiations Suspended

According to a statement issued by the musicians of the Houston Symphony, "negotiations for a new labor agreement between the Houston Symphony Society and its musicians have broken off and no new talks are scheduled at this time. The two sides remain far apart on key financial issues of salary, pension, and health insurance. The musicians have been playing without a contract since May 28."

"The Houston Symphony is in the midst of a period of robust artistic and financial growth. The orchestra has begun to record and tour again during the last several years. During the last three years the Society has balanced its budget while musicians' salaries have increased by about 7% per year and the total budget has increased by about 6% per year. The musicians have proposed continued growth along these lines and improvements in the pension and health benefits."

"The current maximum pension for a fully vested retiree is $20,000 per year. The musicians have proposed raising this amount to $28,000 per year. Presently, only one half of dependent coverage premiums are paid by the Society. (Musicians pay over $200 per month for one dependent and over $400 per month for two or more dependents.) The musicians' proposal includes complete dependent coverage. Management's proposal includes no change in health benefits and a token increase in the pension to $21,000 per year."

"The Society proposes across the board raises totaling $32 in the first year, then $38 and $40 in the following years. Half of these amounts are increases in EMG, however, so actual salary increases by less than 2% per year. Base pay is currently $1060, including EMG. Management has shown no movement to improve this package and negotiations have been suspended until they provide a better proposal. It is likely that no meeting will be held until after the Society's Executive Committee meeting on July 12."

"The musicians are united against compromising the development of the Houston Symphony and are represented by Negotiating Committee Chairman Tom Elliott and Negotiating Committee members Chris French, Kevin Kelly, Larry Thompson, and Phil Stanton. Musicians' counsel is Phil Sipser."

Milwaukee Symphony: Staff, Conductor Changes

On July 21, the Milwaukee Symphony announced that Harvey Felder, assistant conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony, would be named resident conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony. He will begin his new position this fall.

Felder, who is a Milwaukee native, came to the MSO as Affiliate Artists conductor in 1988. After three seasons, he was named assistant conductor. His contract with the MSO runs through the 1994-95 season.

In addition to his positions with the MSO and the SLSO, Felder has a year remaining on his contract as music director of the Fox Valley (WI) Symphony, and will start as music director of the Tacoma (WA) Symphony this fall as well.

Felder's responsibilities with the SLSO will reportedly be similar to what he has been doing with the MSO, although he will also have responsibility for the St. Louis Youth Symphony and some subscription concerts.

Felder's departure completes what has been an near-total turnover in the MSO's conducting staff. Music Director Zdenek Macal announced his intention not to renew his contract, which runs through the end of the 1994-95 season, in November of 1993. He had accepted the position of artistic advisor with the New Jersey Symphony in XX and sold his Milwaukee residence in XX. Margaret Hawkins, the founder and director of the MSO Chorus, died in November 1993. Doc Severinson was named Principal Pops Conductor in March 1994, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski was named artistic advisor in May 1994.

On July 19, it was announced that Neil Gittleman, the MSO's associate conductor and the only member of last year's conducting staff who is not departing, had been named Resident Conductor beginning with the 1995/96, coinciding with music director Zdenek Macal's departure and the arrival of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski as artistic advisor.

Gittleman came to the MSO as associate conductor in 1989, and directs one of the MSO's most successful programs, the Classical Conversations concert series.

Also on July 19, it was announced that General Manager Ernest Rose would be leaving the MSO in the fall of 1994 to pursue an unnamed business venture. Rose, who has degrees from the University of Minnesota, came to the MSO from the Syracuse Symphony in the summer of 1993. He replaced Joan Squires, who was promoted to MSO Executive Director in March 1993.

Philadelphia Orchestra Backing Away From Academy Renovations

According to an article published in the Philadelphia ~Inquirer~ on July 22, "the leadership of the Philadelphia Orchestra has backed away from the ... controversial renovation planned for the Academy of Music backed by philanthropists Walter Annenberg and R. Anderson Pew." One critic of the plan, Opera Company of Philadelphia head Robert B. Driver, said that the proposed renovation, which is also strongly opposed by the Pennsylvania Ballet, would turn the Academy into a "Monty Python set."

At stake are some large issues and larger sums of money for many parties. Annenberg has pledged $10 million for the Academy renovation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts pledged another $10 million, contingent on the orchestra raising $15 million for endowment.

The renovation is intended mainly to improve the acoustics of the 137-year-old Academy of Music, which was originally designed as an opera house. It includes the installation of a "mother ship" - a large disk floating above the stage that could be lowered to serve as a floor for opera and ballet performances. In addition, the box seating on each side of the stage would be put on air casters so that they could be moved out of the way for orchestral performances.

Complicating the situation is the orchestra's plan to build its own dedicated concert hall as soon as it raises the necessary $140 million, of which it is approximately $40 million short. The ballet and opera companies argue that putting $20 million into acoustic renovations of a hall that the orchestra intends to leave shortly is less than wise, especially as it would make staging many of the opera company's productions, as well as the ballet company's annual production of "Nutcracker," impossible, according to sources at the opera and ballet.

Adding fuel to the controversy are hints that the National Park Service, which maintains the Register of National Historic Landmarks, is considering stripping the Academy of its landmark status, granted in 1963, should the renovation proceed.

Annenberg has indicated some flexibility regarding the renovations, while Pew has maintained his strong support for the project, having questioned the need for a new hall, and the orchestra's ability to pay for it, in the past.

St. Paul Chamber Orchestra: New Staff Members, Surplus

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has hired Welz Kaufman as general manager, replacing David Schillhammer, who left in November 1993 to become Executive Director of the San Antonio Symphony.

Kaufman is currently artistic administrator of the Atlanta Symphony. Prior to going to Atlanta in 1992, he had served as general manager of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1988-92. He has also worked for the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He received his education at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he graduated with honors in piano performance.

The SPCO has also hired Terry Schindler as marketing director. Schindler comes to the SPCO from the Chicago Symphony.

The SPCO has had a near-complete turnover of its senior staff since last summer, when then-president William Vickery resigned. In February, Brent Assink returned to the SPCO as president from the San Francisco Symphony, where he had been general manager.

The St. Paul ~Pioneer~ ~Press~ reported on July 3 that preliminary figures showed a surplus of between $350,000 and $400,000 for the 1993-94 season. The SPCO is carrying an accumulated deficit of $1.5 million. The surplus is partly a result of the musicians' agreement to deep cuts in the length of the season and a highly successful radiothon in September, hosted by Garrison Keillor and produced by Minnesota Public Radio, that raised over $740,000.

A Note on the Setext Format

Setext is a text format devised by Ian Feldman ianf@random.se, who describes himself as follows:
"I live in Stockholm, Sweden, Europe. I used to work as and describe myself variously over the years but now simply contend myself with being just a free Human Factors thinker and tinkerer."

Feldman described the rationale behind the setext format as follows: "Data formats like the RTF (Rich Text Format) and SGML (Standard Graphic Markup Language) have been designed for processing ONLY by software. Setext, on the other hand, has been optimized for reading directly by human eyes on what probably is still the lowest common denominator of today's computer hardware, an 80-character by 24-line terminal screen (or, in effect, any computer screen). It follows that the format is intended chiefly for smaller texts, those of a size that a human reader might find within her capacity of overview."

Being text files, setext files can be read by any mail viewer, word processor, or text editor. There are, however, at least two setext "browsers," which allow the user to display setext files saved in various formats, including the title-and-chapter format of DOS Orchestra, display formatting (such as bold, underline, and italic) and also allow searching of multiple files for text strings.

The setext browser for the Macintosh is called Easy View, and the current version number is 2.44. It was written by Akif Eyler and is freeware. Those that use it, however, should drop him a note of appreciation. Easy View can be found by looking among the usual suspect online services.

One effective way of using Easy View is to set up a folder for DOS issues, and in it store both the issues you wish to view and the Easy View index file called "TidBITS" which comes with the application, renaming it if you wish. You can then add new issues to the folder and Easy View will automatically add them to the index when you launch it. Issues need to be stored in standard Mac text format (without line breaks). The easiest way to do this is to copy the text of DOS from your mail reader and paste it into a new word processor or text editor document. Then store the document in text format, giving it the appropriate name.

There is also a setext browser for Windows in beta-test (translated into English, that means "don't blame ICSOM, the editor of DOS, the gentleman who programmed the browser, or anyone else for any problems caused by using it"). Called "EASYVIEW for WINDOWS version 1.0," it can be obtained, for those wishing to try it out, by sending email to the author, David Davenport, at david@bilkent.edu.tr, or from DOS Orchestra at robert.levine@mixcom.com.
DOS Orchestra is wrapped as a setext file. For information about the setext markup, send a message to robert.levine@mixcom.com with the single word "setext" (no quotes) in the subject line, and a file will be returned to you.

DOS Orchestra is a publication of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) and is published more or less weekly. ICSOM is an affiliated conference of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO. **DOS Orchestra** may be freely distributed as long as it is distributed in its entirety and no charge is made for the redistribution. Any other unauthorized reproduction of any part of DOS Orchestra is strictly forbidden, except that non-profit, non-commercial publications may reprint articles if full credit is given. All rights reserved.
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