The sounds of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra may be more accessible to a diverse audience with the use of new media. The struggling orchestra is operating under a budget that is two million dollars less than a few years ago. Its season is down to 25 weeks instead of 38. Musicians are getting less pay. Part of the blame is a down economy, but Columbus Symphony President, Roland Valliere told City Council Member Priscilla Tyson at a hearing on the arts he sees better days ahead. Valliere says the symphony is working out a partnership with CAPA the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts.

“We’re convinced that orchestras everywhere need to move to a new or different business model,” Valliere said.

Valliere says the symphony needs to change with technology.

“What we’re about is connecting the music to people. That is the raison d’etre of the Columbus Symphony. That’s why we and every symphony orchestra exist. So we want to rally and mobilize our resources in a way that allows us to deliver great symphonic music inside and outside of the concert hall,” said Valliere.

Using new technology to get classical sounds to an audience is the future according to CAPA President, Bill Conner.

“A new business model one that’s more nimble, that is certainly unafraid of allowing its music to get outside the concert hall, for people to pick it up on their i-pod or streaming or in a concert hall maybe in Portsmouth, Ohio. That’s a whole different model and that’s the way the partnership can work together,” Conner said.

Conner adds CAPA can handle many marketing and administrative duties for the symphony as they work together to help support musical arts in Columbus.

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.

It came in an upscale coupon packet in Dublin – a flier for the Dayton Symphony Orchestra: buy season tickets, get one concert free.

“We don’t look at this as, oh gee, there’s a big pork chop over there, let’s go get it,” Dayton Symphony Orchestra director of marketing and public relations Dave Bukvic said.

Bukvic said the coupons were sent to select neighborhoods on Columbus’s far west side and parts of Cincinnati. He said the fliers are part of a marketing pilot program – not a reaction to the Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s uncertain future.

“I hope people who live in Columbus don’t think this is a response to the trials and tribulations they are having because we think it’s a horrible idea for Columbus to not have a world-class orchestra just like Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, they deserve it and they should have one,” Bukvic said.

He said the Dayton Symphony broadened its marketing radius when it moved to its new performance venue in 2003. And he said the fliers in Columbus and Cincinnati were planned in February before the Dayton orchestra knew about Columbus’s financial problems.

“We’ve been mapping our customers both pops and classical as we’ve been going along through the years here to see what kind of radius we can really pull from. And the left edge of Columbus, as we call it, is really pretty far. And we do have subscribers there but they have to be in that sort of, that top cluster segment of people who are really into the music,” he said.

Right now, Bukvic said the DPO does not plan to market to the rest of Columbus. He said the far west side of the city is already a hike to Dayton. It’s about an hour and 20 minutes from Dublin.

The symphony orchestras in Cleveland and Cincinnati said their marketing departments have no plans to heighten campaigns in Columbus.

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra marketing director Sherri Prentiss said their marketing budget, like many symphonies, is tight. And she said their plan is to stay focused on their immediate region which includes parts of northern Kentucky.

“We operate very leanly and I see us as having a lot of opportunity in our backyard here in the Cincinnati Metropolitan area first and foremost,” Prentiss said.

Cleveland Symphony Orchestra public relations director Anna Papakhian said the Cleveland orchestra already has some patrons from the Columbus area.

“We don’t have specific marketing plans to enhance anything in the Columbus area,” Papakhian said.

It’s about an-hour-and-45 minutes to Cincinnati and almost two-and-a-half hours to Cleveland. Dayton’s Bukvic said if anyone stands to benefit from Columbus’s misfortune it would be Dayton because it’s the shortest drive.

“I would say Dayton probably does stand to gain maybe a little more if Columbus decides it is not going to field an orchestra, than Cincinnati might or that certainly Cleveland might, Cleveland being farther,” he said.

But none of the orchestras were thrilled at the prospect of gaining from Columbus’s loss.

“We are hoping for the best in Columbus. Well we certainly feel for our friends in Columbus. Come out and support the Columbus orchestra.”

And Dayton’s Bukvic said the symphony would even consider reducing marketing efforts in Columbus.

“We really don’t want to be seen as predatory. That’s not how orchestras should be working with each other. I think it’s a double edge blade because what we would like to say is if there’s a point at which Columbus music fans are not getting the fix they need as far as classic, well sure, we’d like them to come over. But I also don’t want, we don’t want to as an organization do anything that would inhibit them from getting back on their feet,” Bukvic said.

There’s still demand, though, for symphony music in central Ohio as seen by two CSO musician concerts this month. The concerts follow months of talks with the symphony’s board which canceled the summer season in May.

Columbus Symphony Orchestra Committee Chairman Jim Akins said the two concerts brought in about $30,000 that will be split up among the players.

“There are many musicians that are in single income households. So they’re being hit very hard by this. So this will help them with their health care coverages and things like that,” Akins said.

With the success of the first two concerts, the musicians plan two more – one later this week and one next month.

“The musicians were actually locked out. They didn’t go on strike.”

That’s what Timothy Gibbons said happened one afternoon in November when Jacksonville Symphony players arrived for practice. Gibbons, a reporter for the “Florida Times-Union”, covered the symphony’s labor dispute.

“They’re going along, going to practices, playing and everything and they basically showed up one day and were told OK no more performances,” he said.

The lock-out didn’t happen over night. The musicians’ five-year contract was up in August 2007. So from August until the lock-out in November musicians and the board were in negotiations.

Gibbons said the symphony’s $8 million budget was $3 million in the hole.

“The board told executives, OK, that’s enough you have to cut expenses. And obviously the main expense for a symphony is the musicians. So cutting expenses was cutting their salaries,” Gibbons said.

The musicians were not keen on pay cuts, and the board wouldn’t budge.

“The musicians saying we’re not going to take, we’re not going to take pay cuts. On the other side management was very firm on we’re going to cut expenses and that’s the way to do it,” Gibbons recalled.

The musicians were out of work for ten weeks – all of the holiday season. The annual Nutcracker Ballet went on, but with recorded music.

The symphony resumed concerts in mid-January after a 10 week lock-out. The musicians took a salary freeze for three years, after which time Gibbons said they’ll start receiving small raises. But it was not just the salary freezes that helped save the orchestra.

A group of symphony-goers came together to form the organization, Friends of the Jacksonville Symphony. Earl Barker is a member of Friends.

“There were a number of us who thought, or were sensing, that there was a real threat to the continuation of the symphony has it has existed and we were not willing to let that happen,” Barker said.

Gibbons said another part of the dispute was cutting the season by two weeks. So the Friends group, as they’re often called, offered to fund-raise and pay for the musicians’ salaries for those two weeks for five years.

Barker said the Friends group will pay $100,000 for the symphony’s encore week. It also will come up with $100,000 in grants for a week where a symphony ensemble plays at local schools. So over the next five years Friends of the Jacksonville Symphony will have to raise $500,000 in cash.

Barker was asked: what if Friends can not come up with all the money?

“The musicians, in that situation, which is going to happen this year, where we are paying half, then the musicians donate services for the other half and get paid out of the profits,” he answered.

Barker said he does not expect to have a problem raising the money. He said the group has only been fund-raising since mid-February and has raised $50,000 for the orchestra’s encore week. While he said the JSO said it tapped all its fund-raising resources, he said the Friends group is reaching out to new possibilities.

“We think there are additional funds available. We know they are available because they’ve funded us,” Barker said.

Barker said the symphony’s board, in his words, “reluctantly,” accepted the Friends idea to raise money for the musicians’ salaries. But he said they were receptive enough to finally come to a new contract agreement.

Gibbons said after the dispute was resolved the symphony brought in consultants to work on communication issues, and there’s also a new executive director.

To function well a symphony does need some kind of cooperation between management and labor. A lot of that rift has been healed. I mean obviously it’s a lot easier to be fairly ticked of when you’re out of work,” Gibbons said.

The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra declined an interview about the lock-out saying, “Indeed there has been a settlement following a difficult labor dispute, but we feel it is best to focus on the challenges that lie ahead.”

Friends of Jacksonville Symphony’s Earl Barker said it saddens him to hear about Columbus’ symphony plight.

“I have the sense from what I read that your community, like ours, has enjoyed having a very fine symphony for a lot of years. I certainly would encourage the community to get together and say, no, we are going to have the symphony then do what’s necessary to have it happen. It would be a real tragedy for a place like Columbus, to have, to have the music go silent,” he said.

“Frustrated. Frank exchanges. Hopeful. Cordial.”

Those are some of the adjectives CSO board president Buzz Trafford and Musicians’ union president Doug Fisher used to describe the most recent negotiations.

Both sides say they talked for several hours about the musicians’ proposal to add $1.6 million of “In-Kind” money to the symphony’s overall budget. Musicians’ union president Fisher said in the end the board rejected the idea.

“Their arguments are unclear. We spent a lot of time trying to achieve a meeting of the minds on what the ‘In-Kind’ numbers meant and whether or not it was appropriate in counting them in creating a budget,” Fisher said.

CSO board chair Buzz Trafford has said before that “In-Kind” money can not be put into a bank account and therefore should not be included in the budget.

Including the “In-Kind” donations would boost the board’s proposed budget to $11.1 million, closer to what the musicians’ say a symphony of Columbus’s size needs to operate.

Also at the meeting the players proposed starting from scratch with a mediation committee of five people who are in no way affiliated with the symphony, its board or union.

Trafford said he must speak with other board members before he can agree to the mediation proposal. But he does not think third party mediators are a silver bullet.

“I’m not convinced that there’s any magic solution here,” Trafford said.

There are no more talks scheduled at this time. The musicians said they’re just waiting to hear from the board.

Meanwhile, Bill Connor, president of the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts or CAPA, told The Columbus Dispatch it’s scrambling to book the Ohio Theatre on dates reserved for the symphony.

Fisher said CAPA and its employees will not be the only ones hurting if the symphony does not resume next year. He said if musicians are forced to find work outside Columbus many music students will have to find new teachers.

“There’s just going to be a massive domino effect if the orchestra shuts down permanently,” Fisher said.

Bob Falcone ran through the list of arts organizations that were awarded funds for operational support: $234,000 for the Museum of Art; $208,000 for BalletMet; $272,000 for COSI.

Last year the Columbus Symphony received about $250,000, but this year, Falcone said, a decision on the orchestra’s application is being postponed.

“There’s still a lot of scurrying going on with the Columbus Symphony and what we are doing is recommending that we table any decision on them until our next board meeting,” Falcone said.

That’s good news for the symphony as it tries to save its upcoming season. Greater Columbus Arts Council chairwoman Dee Dee Glimcher said in a statement the board hopes there will be a settlement, but she said, “We are committed to being responsible stewards of public money and we need to make sure the Columbus Symphony Orchestra will be in operation before we give them Operating Support Funds.”

Glimcher says the board will monitor the situation closely.