Are ASO musicians and Woodfruff Arts Center getting closer to a new deal?
Report suggests lockout could soon be over.
- Joeff Davis/CL File
- WELCOME NEWS: The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra rehearses at the Woodruff Arts Center in Midtown in 2013. The ASO musicians and management are reportedly closer to reaching an agreement to end the current lockout.
For over two months, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians have been locked out without pay. According to a report, that long (and at times bitter) dispute between the musicians and management could be coming to a close.
A source in the musicians’ camp told ArtsATL that at 10 a.m. this morning, the players got together during an informational meeting on a proposed contract that involves increasing the size of the orchestra over the next fours years. At meeting’s end, the players would have 24 hours to vote on the latest proposal, which includes no wage cuts, a health care coverage increase, and boosting — over time — the orchestra’s size from 76 to 88 (down from 96 in 2012) musicians. If the musicians agree to this new offer, the ASO’s 70th season, which was originally set to begin on Sept. 25, could pick back up on Nov. 13, with a performance of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9.”
The news comes after a long, drawn-out process that saw the Youth Orchestra take a hit, and the resignation of ASO’s former president and CEO Stanley Romanstein. On top of that, the ASO musicians have been offered part-time performance jobs from orchestras in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati.
The hope now is that if the musicians and management can settle on the current offer, both sides will work to improve the fractured relationship, bring down the ASO’s deficit, and work to build the players roster back up to that 90-person mark. In fact, the report says WAC’s lead negotiator Tom Kilpatrick has offered to help launch a fundraising campaign that would make room for endowed chairs, thus increasing the ASO’s performance roster.
This is good news, right? Well, as one source told ArtsATL: “The orchestra has already been partly dismantled and it’s going to be quite a struggle to build it back.”