For a time last summer it looked as if there would be no more Columbus Symphony. Negotiations between musicians and management had reached an impasse. The summer pops concerts were canceled. Two-thirds of the administrative staff were laid off. Meanwhile musicians refused wage and benefit concessions – and went unpaid. But in September, the union ratified a new contract. Tony Beadle, the symphony’s executive director, says that in spite of the chaos the orchestra has survived. “I think that the orchestra has played wonderfully this year,” Beadle says. “There’s no getting around the fact that they’ve suffered tremendously by not working last summer and not working in the fall but being the professionals they are they’ve come back and have given us some wonderful concerts.”

The orchestra’s musicians made significant sacrifices to return to the concert stage. They took a 25 percent pay cut and cuts to their benefits as well. The average salary had been about $55,000 a year. Beadle says that for the 2009 / 2010 season, salaries will be significantly less.

“Next year the annual base salary would be about $43,000,” he says.

Beadle says audience enthusiasm has not waned even with a faltering economy. He says audience size per concert has remained nearly the same from last year to this

“In terms of the audiences themselves, they didn’t go away; we’re only down about two percent. So that’s a very good sign considering the economy, considering everything else, I have to say Columbus does love their symphony,” he says.

The budget for the upcoming season will be $9.5 million. That’s a sharp drop from the $12 million that the symphony once enjoyed. But even with a 30 percent budget cut, symphony supporters worry about long term viability. Martin Inglis chairs the Symphony Board of Trustees.

“Is anything sustainable at the moment? That’s like asking how long a piece of string is in the present environment,” Inglis says. “I think that we’ve done remarkably well to hang in there this year and this year is not yet done. But I have pretty high confidence with some more hard work, and pray that the weather stays good for the picnic series that we have a shot at breaking even this year. For next year we need to start over again working with all the fantastic patrons we have here in Central Ohio.”

After this season’s classical concerts conclude, the orchestra will focus on its summer pops concerts. But for now the symphony’s budget remains extremely tight.

Orchestra management does have some confidence in the future. Nine guest conductors will be auditioning for the music director’s position during the 2009 /2010 season.

It’s not clear whether Junichi Hirokami was forced to resign or left voluntarily. Hirokami who lives in Japan had commuted to Columbus since 2006. During recent budget cutting, Hirokami had criticized the board, siding with musicians. Martin Inglis is the new chairman of the symphony board of trustees.

“We received a letter from Junichi saying that it has been his great honor to serve the Columbus symphony orchestra however whichever way you interpret it he either believes he has been dismissed or that he has resigned but bottom line he has thanked us and will not be returning,” Inglis says.

The news was a blow, but not unexpected, to the orchestra’s musicians. Doug Fisher is their union representative.

“Maestro Hirokami was just a very exciting musician very relaxed and competent on the podium always very energized and that in turn spread to the musicians and we were able to play with an equal amount of energy in response,” Fisher says.

Board chairman Martin Inglis says the orchestra will begin searching for a new conductor.

The new CSO contract is a compromise between the board of trustees and the orchestra musicians. The board wanted to reduce the size of the orchestra but the musicians prevailed. Board chairman Robert Trafford:

“We will have the same number of full-time musicians, 53, as we did last year and the years immediately preceding that.”

But those 53 musicians are taking cuts in salaries and benefits amounting to about $1.3 million – about 25 percent. Another $1.4 million is being cut from a variety of areas including marketing and development and administrative staff.

“They include a smaller staff, they include some reduced compensation in certain of the staff positions, some savings in what is known as the other artistic category which is where you would find guest artists and things of that nature,” Trafford says.

Left unchanged is the status of the Orchestra’s popular conductor Junichi Hirokami. Hirokami’s contract as music director remains in effect for another year. After that, the board might explore other options.

“I think it’s fair to say that one of the concerns that we have going forward is that there are significant costs – travel costs among them – associated with having a music director who lives in Japan,” Trafford says. “And that’s one of the things that we’re struggling to deal with.”

The board and management will also be working to repair relations with the orchestra’s musicians. Douglas Fisher is a CSO musician and the president of the Central Ohio Federation of Musicians.

We’re perhaps hoping that we can put this long period of strife behind us and hopefully build a more positive relationship with the board and management because our best chance of succeeding in the years to come is for us to walk down the same path in the same direction. And it will take some work to achieve that but I think it’s a goal worth pursing,” Fisher says.

Representatives of the orchestra’s musicians describe the contract as “a lifeboat.” The orchestra’s Jim Akins says musicians were out of options.

The contract’s approval means salaries will drop from an average of $55,000 to about $34,000, for the current, abbreviated 31 week season. For clarinetist David Thomas, the cut in pay is the breaking point.

“My plans are to look elsewhere as soon as possible and to continue to try for orchestras and if not possibly switch careers,” Thomas says. “Because I’m just too creative and too talented a person to deserve this kind of salary for the kind of work that I’ve done all my life.”

Next year’s season will be 38 weeks in length with musicians’ salaries between $42,000 and $44,000.

Times have changed for the financially troubled CSO. Now the Symphony board has decided to terminate 22 of the 53 full-time musicians. Doug Fisher, a long-time CSO bassoonist and the president of the local musicians’ union says the news is discouraging.

“There isn’t a single orchestra in this country that has ever solved its problems by firing 40% of the players,” Fisher says. “It makes absolutely no sense that that’s what they want to do.”

The orchestra ended last season with a $2.2 million dollar deficit. That shortfall cleaned out what was left of the orchestra’s financial reserves. At orchestra headquarters adjacent to the Ohio Theater, Tony Beadle, the symphony’s executive director, described the atmosphere this way.

“We’re basically maxed out,” Beadle says. We’re paycheck to paycheck. The arrival of the mail everyday is pretty exciting because we hope there will be checks there.”

CSO board chairman Robert Trafford says a $3 million shortfall looms on the horizon toward the end of the current season. The board undertook a study that examined how much financial support the orchestra could reasonably expect from the Columbus community. $9.5 million was the finding. Trafford presented the plan of budget cuts to musicians January 17th.

“What we’ve done is to present with a great deal of thought and clarity what we think ought to be done and why,” Trafford says. “Quite frankly we’d begun to talk to the musicians about it when they walked out.”

Union president Doug Fisher says musicians gave $1.2 million in contract concessions in 2005 with the understanding the money would be used to raise more. But the board, he says, did not deliver. Executive director Tony Beadle, who’s been with the orchestra a year and a half, says fund raising is getting more and more difficult.

“Not only are we competing with other arts and other forms of entertainment we’re competing with the concept of cocooning where you get a DVD and stay home,” Beadle says.

But the author of the book “The Life and Death of Classical Music, Norman LeBrecht says balancing the budget on the backs of an orchestra’s musicians is inconceivable.

“I’m puzzled and stupefied by this,” LeBrecht says. “When I see that the reason given for it is an annual deficit for $1.5 million I do have to sit down and reach for the smelling salts because $1.5 million is peanuts.”

LeBrecht is an assistant editor of The Evening Standard in London. Though he’s less familiar with the CSO, he says he’s well acquainted with other symphonies in U.S. cities of similar size to Columbus.

“Here we have a prosperous town, it’s the capital of a prosperous state and the board of its orchestra are saying that it cannot afford to sustain a full symphony orchestra and wants to reduce it to chamber size. That in effect is the eradication of Columbus, Ohio from the cultural map.”

The symphony has considered looking to local government for help. It backs a proposal that would have city and county government contribute to a fund to support local arts groups. Spokesmen for Mayor Coleman and the Columbus City Council say there are no immediate plans to contribute tax dollars to the orchestra, like they did for COSI. Without new streams of revenue Beadle says the downsizing plan is the CSO’s only recourse.

“We had to come up with a plan that would sort of reestablish our credibility with the community,” Beadle says. “That’s what was hurting the most; nobody wanted to believe that the symphony was going to correct its collision course that it was on. And it was only a matter of time before we closed up shop.”

Board chair Trafford says he’s confident this is not the end of the CSO. But musicians’ representative Doug Fisher disagrees.

Well I’m not lying to you; it’s the truth. We have no faith in this board,” Fisher says. “They’ve convinced us that they do not want to support this orchestra at this level and they want to fire 22 of us. And if that is what they really want to do, I think the orchestra is finished.”

The orchestra has a possible recording project for the Denon label in March. They’ll perform Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony and the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Fisher says the album would memorialize the orchestra at its artistic height.

In his letter of resignation, Michael McMennamin wrote was leaving the symphony board because he needed to fully focus on events in his business life.

Earlier this week, Huntington announced it was replacing McMennamin as C.F.O. as the bank tries to reach a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Regulators have been looking into alleged accounting problems at Huntington.

Last month, the CSO hired former Bank One investment executive mark Beeson as interim executive director. Beeson himself was fined by the sec for trading violations.

The CSO faces other challenges: the search for a new music director and negotiations with the musicians union over a proposed pay cut.

Before McMennimen resignation announcement, the head of the musicians union, Doug Fisher said he was concerned about the impact on contributions.

McMennamin served on the board for 4 years, the last year as chairman.

The vice chair of the CSO board, Fordham Huffman will serve as chairman until a full board election can be held.

In a statement, Huffman said the board is grateful for McMennamin’s leadership. Huffman said the board regrets but understands McMennamin’s decision