Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

sasymphony.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 86 posts

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#51

Post by yakak »

imgabe wrote: post #45
pSYoniK wrote: post #26

I fully agree with drewcoo's comment. I cannot believe the discussions occurring here surrounding professional musicians, people who have trained for years to hone their skills. I cannot believe that the attitude towards a union -"wouldn't they all be better now since they'd still be employed"? These are statements made by someone who never had to face the reality of the fact that sometimes a job offers so little mon…

What would be your preferred alternative? Should the symphony pay them all six-figure salaries until it becomes insolvent, and then closes anyway? I'm not sure what you want to happen here. It seems like the people of San Antonio are not interested in paying for a symphony. That's their prerogative. Many cities don't have a symphony. There's a great many goods and services that take years of skill to master that I do…

It seems to me like they are expressing shock that cities the size of San Antonio aren't willing to pay enough or for whatever reasons don't raise enough for a symphony. There's not really an alternative, the suggestions of professional symphony players working for almost nothing or compromising their performances by not practicing are rather offensive.

From a union of musicians perspective, I think they made the right choice. No symphony for San Antonio, no reason to return to the table. Maybe other cities will be a little more careful than they would have been with raising and using funds.

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#52

Post by lelag »

tinus_hn wrote: post #50
lelag wrote: post #49

Classical music and symphonic orchestras have always been expensive endeavours requiring a healthy influx of money. Before the 20th century that support was coming almost exclusively from patronage. With the advent of the recording industry, a large influx of money from record sales allowed to develop a large industry around western classical music supporting many performers and orchestras. The subscription model tha…

Obviously two years of lockdowns had nothing to do with it!

2 years hiatus of public performance would have been a non-event in the 20th century. You could just have used the time to release some new records.

Yes, COVID has nothing to do with the classical music industry woes. Spotify and its terrible redistribution model is the main culprit.

Of course, COVID might have been what pushed this particular formation over the edge but it is just the extra drop spilling over. Fees from public performance has never been enough to fund a full symphonic orchestra.

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#53

Post by hulitu »

Animats wrote: post #33

Here's management's final offer:[1] The Symphony Society, which governs the local symphony through a board of trustees and management, made a “Last, Best and Final” offer on September 13. That offer would: - Cut the number of full-time symphony musicians from 72 to 42. - Reduce the symphony season length from 31 weeks to 26 weeks. - Slash the salaries of full-time musicians from roughly $36,000 a year to $24,000. - H…

> - Cut the number of full-time symphony musicians from 72 to 42.

So they want to change from a symphonic orchestra to a chamber one.

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#54

Post by bell-cot »

mind-blight wrote: post #46
bell-cot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading further down in the article you cite - talking about this as a labor vs. management battle pushes a lot of people's buttons, but that's just an emotional side-show. The Real Story: An organization had neither enough income to survive, nor good prospects of improving that situation. So it died.

Given the letter written by the board, I think it's fair to discuss. At the very least, the board is trying to save face by blaming the shutdown on "the union being unreasonable". That always makes me suspicious about the details being left out. The nuances around went it died are also important. Could it have been saved with a different managerial approach? That's especially relevant for a cultural institution.

Call me old and cynical...but my read of the letter was "We are financially dead & headed to the Chapter 7 chop shop". Followed by all the required-by-social-conventions things they're supposed to say, regardless of truth.

From skimming a couple sources, it sounds like the Symphony had profound financial problems, going back decades. Prospective local donors & sponsors tend to have long memories of such things. A little local non-profit can't play corporate name games to escape from a bad reputation. Nor count on attracting the best of board members or managers.

I agree that the nuances, details, "could it have been saved?", local cultural institutions, etc. are important. But unless some long-term insider from the SAS pops up here on HN, I don't think we've any chance to find out. :(

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#55

Post by yakak »

lelag wrote: post #52
tinus_hn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously two years of lockdowns had nothing to do with it!

2 years hiatus of public performance would have been a non-event in the 20th century. You could just have used the time to release some new records. Yes, COVID has nothing to do with the classical music industry woes. Spotify and its terrible redistribution model is the main culprit. Of course, COVID might have been what pushed this particular formation over the edge but it is just the extra drop spilling over. Fees…

> You could just have used the time to release some new records.

If you were a soloist you could have used the time. If you were a 5 piece you could use about half the time depending on region. Larger groups had a lot of problems given time delays in remote communication.

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#56

Post by anm89 »

wiz21c wrote: post #31
kube-system wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They filed chapter 7. It’s gone. Many symphonies around the US are struggling with money. If your income can’t pay the bills, you can’t operate. This isn’t the first one to shut down and it won’t be the last. Patronage is declining.

If your income can't pay the bill, then society as whole must think about it's useful to keep you alive or not. There is another world outside the economical one.

It seems like society has done their thinking and made their decision

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#57

Post by qeternity »

mushbino wrote: post #25
lsy wrote: post #8

It's important to remember that this is a statement made by one party to a dispute, not a neutral statement of facts. It's unclear whether any of the claims made in the statement are true, or whether this is an intentionally destructive response to hard bargaining by the musicians.

The problem was that they did zero bargaining, pay kept getting cut until it wasn't paying enough to be worth doing anymore. They filled chapter 7, it's done. You can see something similar with the "worker shortage". People don't want to do many jobs for what they're willing to pay. If workers had more leverage in bargaining, pay and benefits could rise to be worth doing.

Since they filed Chapter 7 I’m not sure what bargaining you seem to think they were in a position to do?

It just sounds as though the symphony isn’t economically viable anymore.

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#58

Post by qeternity »

wiz21c wrote: post #31
kube-system wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They filed chapter 7. It’s gone. Many symphonies around the US are struggling with money. If your income can’t pay the bills, you can’t operate. This isn’t the first one to shut down and it won’t be the last. Patronage is declining.

If your income can't pay the bill, then society as whole must think about it's useful to keep you alive or not. There is another world outside the economical one.

Yes, socialism which has succeeded in precisely zero instances.

At the end of the day, you eventually run out of other people’s money.

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#59

Post by mushbino »

qeternity wrote: post #57
mushbino wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was that they did zero bargaining, pay kept getting cut until it wasn't paying enough to be worth doing anymore. They filled chapter 7, it's done. You can see something similar with the "worker shortage". People don't want to do many jobs for what they're willing to pay. If workers had more leverage in bargaining, pay and benefits could rise to be worth doing.

Since they filed Chapter 7 I’m not sure what bargaining you seem to think they were in a position to do? It just sounds as though the symphony isn’t economically viable anymore.

They weren't in a position to bargain since they'd already accepted repeated cuts and it's hard for a symphony to stay solvent when it doesn't have any musicians.

It looks like the musicians have started performing on their own. I hope that works out for them.

Re: The Board of Directors Announces the Dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony

#60

Post by kareemsabri »

yakak wrote: post #51
imgabe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be your preferred alternative? Should the symphony pay them all six-figure salaries until it becomes insolvent, and then closes anyway? I'm not sure what you want to happen here. It seems like the people of San Antonio are not interested in paying for a symphony. That's their prerogative. Many cities don't have a symphony. There's a great many goods and services that take years of skill to master that I do…

It seems to me like they are expressing shock that cities the size of San Antonio aren't willing to pay enough or for whatever reasons don't raise enough for a symphony. There's not really an alternative, the suggestions of professional symphony players working for almost nothing or compromising their performances by not practicing are rather offensive. From a union of musicians perspective, I think they made the rig…

I didn't get the impression from the article the city administers the symphony or that the budget for the musicians comes out of public funds.

They aren't expressing shock at the city, they're expressing shock at one or two comments on here that they deem morally disgusting. It's totally unnecessary (we can read) but pretty standard.

Post reply on HN