Stop Punishing the ASO Musicians

This letter was sent this morning from Alto Nicole Khoury

Esteemed Members of the ASO Board and Woodruff Arts Council:

I am writing, like so many in our community, in support of the musicians of our beloved Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.   I am deeply troubled by the way in which they are being asked to shoulder completely a financial burden (disaster?) which was not of their making.  

The musicians are my colleagues, and they are my friends.  They are the reason that I, trembling with performance anxiety and fear, auditioned nearly 20 years ago for the fabled ASO Chorus, then under the magical guidance of one of music’s greatest-ever appreciators: Robert Shaw.  My audition was successful---and I’ve never left.  Like our cherished musicians, I also attended music school, where my focus was piano performance.  UNLIKE our cherished musicians, I was not of prodigious talent, and would not make a career of playing my instrument.  My struggles with balancing practicing hours a day while still trying to “have a life” pretty much ended at graduation and later I would find myself returning to graduate school in the field of medicine.  

But music remains my life-blood.  For the members of the ASO, their lives involve a constant and complete commitment to their musicianship, to their patrons, their community, and to themselves to always be better.  I’m not sure you fully appreciate what type of sacrifice and dedication this kind of life entails.  How rare these gifted musicians are.  Yet each and every day, our ASO members do their jobs with grace, with appreciation for their gifts and their support, all the while knowing that like elite athletes or the most gifted of surgeons, they have expiration dates.

   

No matter which side of the stage I’m on, and even after all of these years, I sometimes cannot believe my luck that I am blessed enough to have these treasured musicians in my midst.  I’m even luckier some of them are my longtime friends.  One can imagine the pain I feel for them on so many levels as they are being subjected to the punitive tactics imposed during this lockout.  It was and should never be the responsibility of the musicians (or their families, who are also now suffering) to balance budgets, to market the ASO more effectively, to manage growing and festering debt.  

The musicians should not be held accountable for failing to maintain or create relationships with donors.  Why should the musicians be blamed for the trespasses of others?  They already deliver your prized product: impeccable, thoughtful, ravishing, mind-blowing performances.  GRAMMY-WINNING performances.  They already do their parts for education and outreach.  They already spend grueling hours perfecting their crafts.  How can it be that the very product cherished and in demand by so many (around the world, mind you), is so undervalued by those who are trusted to ensure its preservation?  I can’t think of any other explanation for the neglect which led to the current situation.

I urge all of you to please make this right.  Enough about the changing models of orchestra management; why should we abandon creativity and loyalty and succumb to the ‘easy’ solution just because “XYZ orchestra did it”?  Why spew the same rhetoric in press release after press release?  Your public isn’t exactly easily fooled, and if you take the time to read the comment threads on the multiple media articles out there, I think you’ll see not only the very low opinion of the management but the real fear that we may lose our orchestra.  And then where will we be?  WHO will Atlanta be without our Orchestra?  Allowing that hopelessness to take hold in the hearts of all of us who love and cherish the ASO is, quite plainly, shameful.  DO something.

Sincerely,

Nicole L. Khoury

#313    

ASO Chorus member 1993-present