I have been struggling to write my feelings about this current lockout situation, but I just couldn’t find the right words to express what is going on in my heart. And then Monday night, in the midst of a powerful musical experience, it suddenly came into clear focus. As members of the ASO Chorus performed on the picket line to express our support for the orchestra, the three acappella pieces felt poignant and appropriate to the occasion. But as we sang the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, it felt all wrong. There was no orchestra underneath us driving the triplet motif that adds such energy to the choral part. And then, when we reached the climax of this section, there was no orchestra to continue on. There was just silence, and it was deafening.
Think of the long history this work has with the orchestra and chorus -- the life-changing performances behind the Iron Curtain, anniversary celebrations in Symphony Hall, honoring Robert Shaw at the Kennedy Center and on and on. It has marked our shared times of great excitement and great sadness, and it is a piece that requires both an orchestra and a chorus. Is the silence we heard last night what we have to expect for Atlanta’s future? I can’t even comprehend what that would mean.
The orchestra has already been decimated and demoralized by the contract enacted two years ago. I have watched the steady exodus going on over the past few years of fantastic players heading out to other orchestras. This exodus began even before the 2012 contract dispute because it was already evident that the symphony and arts center leadership didn’t see a lot of value in maintaining the integrity of the orchestra. Not only have treasured players left for other places to perform, but equally treasured performers have just given up and retired because they could see the writing on the wall. I hate the fact that such brilliant musicians and dear friends have been forced into these decisions. I really do believe that the WAC wants to get rid of the orchestra, though why they would want to do this is a mystery.
This is not an insignificant issue and I believe that there are some facts that may be unknown to the general public. Some facts tell the story of mismanagement and questionable decisions while others reveal the quality of the musicians we are fighting to save. I am certainly not an expert, but I offer the following information in the hopes it will further inform the public about what is happening on the corner of Peachtree and 15th Streets.
The Woodruff Arts Center is registered as a nonprofit entity through a single 501(c)(3). This means that the ASO, the High Museum and the Alliance Theater all share the same 501(c)(3). The Atlanta College of Art was once a part of that same 501(c)(3), but the WAC decided over strong protest to merge the ACA with the Savannah College of Art and Design, this just months after a major construction project had built new facilities and dorms for the ACA within the WAC. Now SCAD is located in another midtown complex though they use some of the ACA facilities that were built during that construction project. I don’t know the status of SCAD’s 501(c)(3), though I suspect they were already incorporated and have maintained their own number.
In addition to dumping the ACA and merging with SCAD over protests, the WAC also went against the advice of the education departments of all their performing divisions and invited Young Audiences to become a part of their umbrella as well. Now consider this – the ASO, the High and the Alliance all have education departments that offer school programs and other educational activities. They all depend on resources from these programs to help fund their educational activities. Young Audiences also provides programs that go out to schools, and with limited arts dollars available for schools to book arts programs, they often have to choose between YA programs and those of the WAC performing divisions. So why would the WAC in essence ask the competition to come into their house?
The WAC wrings every possible dollar out of its partners and patrons. If the ASO or the High or the Alliance wants to book a room in the center for a presentation of some sort, they must pay exorbitant rental fees to the WAC. If they want a table or chairs, they have to rent those from the WAC as well, and even pay rental for tablecloths and skirts because the WAC requires that all tables be skirted. For many years, members of the ASO Chorus had to pay parking fees to park in the WAC garage, even though all chorus members volunteer their time and pay to make the trip to the center for as many as 280 hours each season. A WAC corporate patron donated parking space to the chorus, but the walk from the upper levels of the 1180 Peachtree Street parking deck is pretty far. Several members of the chorus have physical limitations and are unable to make that long walk, but the WAC only allows them discount parking of $5 on some Monday nights. The rest of the time, they pay $12 a night to park there, even though the chorus is donating time to make money for the ASO and the WAC. During a performance week with three rehearsal nights and three performance nights, that is $65 that they pay in parking fees alone. Multiply that times 6 or 7 performance weeks in a season, and it becomes quite expensive to do this volunteer job that we all love.
The Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra is another group of volunteers who actually pay hundreds of dollars in tuition for the privilege of being a part of that orchestra. They perform amazing concerts that are equal to or better than those of many professional or semi-professional regional orchestras. They perform on the ASO family concerts season and other concerts that bring in money to the ASO and the WAC. They just learned today that their upcoming auditions have been cancelled, with management blaming this decision on the ASO musicians, who, being locked out, cannot attend. The ASYO is one of the leading youth orchestras in the country and students in the Atlanta area plan and prepare for years to be able to perform with them. Now their plans have hit a wall, and it is possible that they will miss this entire year. What a waste of educational opportunities in a state that doesn’t even have an arts requirement built into their core curriculum. And in yet another unbelievable act of bad judgment, the ASO has contacted everyone who has applied to audition asking them if they would like to donate their application fees back to the organization.
The ASO’s Talent Development Program is nationally recognized for its mission to identify and prepare musically gifted African American and Latino students for admission to the country’s top music programs and for careers in classical music. After 20 years, this program now boasts students in the leading conservatories and music schools, as well as graduates performing in all areas of music and teaching the next generations of musicians. One graduate of both the ASYO and the TDP, Mason Morton, is competing tonight at Radio City Music Hall as one of 6 finalist acts in America’s Got Talent. Will we now lose these years of preparation to the indifference of the WAC?
The ASO has won 27 Grammy Awards, many of which are in the categories of best recording (classical, choral, orchestral, opera) of the year. This is equivalent to song or album of the year in the non-classical Grammy awards. How does that compare to other well-known musicians? Quincy Jones and Alison Krauss have also won 27. U2 and Stevie Wonder have 22 each. Bruce Springsteen has won 20, and Aretha Franklin, 18. And what about some of the superstars of music? The Beatles have 8, and Elvis has only 3. Clearly, the ASO is world class, Virginia Hepner!
The ASO Chorus and Chamber Chorus are also world class. They have appeared both with the ASO and with other orchestras in the some of the best-known performance spaces in the world.
The Chorus made its Carnegie Hall debut in 1976 with a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and has returned to perform there 23 different times. It performed in the Kennedy Center for President-elect Jimmy Carter's Inaugural Concert in 1977 and again in 1991 for the Kennedy Center Honors given to Robert Shaw. In 1988, it accompanied the Orchestra on its first European tour, performing in New York, East Berlin, Zürich, Ludwigsburg, Paris, Bristol and London. It has appeared with the ASO for televised concerts on several occasions, including the 1995 national broadcast of the orchestra's 50th-anniversary celebration and the statewide telecast honoring the Chorus's own 25th anniversary. With the ASO it appeared in the Opening Ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games, broadcast worldwide. The Choruses have been featured twice at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, in a residency with the ASO and Robert Spano at California's Ojai Festival, and have taken three trips to Germany with conductor Donald Runnicles to be a special guest of the Berlin Philharmonic at their home, the Berlin Philharmonie. No one needs to make a subjective determination about whether the ASO’s performing forces are world class. The facts speak for themselves.
The city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia woefully underfund the arts. In yet another tale of being at the bottom of a ranking, Georgia ranks 49th in per capita arts funding, behind the other southeastern states of Virginia – 36th, South Carolina – 34th, Mississippi – 32nd, Louisiana – 30th, Kentucky – 28th, Florida – 26th, Alabama – 25th, North Carolina - 21st, Arkansas – 16th and Tennessee – 11th. Only Arizona is lower than Georgia, but they have a state tax that supports the arts. In a 2012 article in Creative Loafing, Flora Maria Garcia, executive director for the Metro Atlanta Arts & Culture Coalition, stated, “Georgia spends 40 cents per capita on the arts while Tennessee spends $1.33 per capita and Alabama spends $1.22 per capita”. Can’t Georgia do any better than this?
I am sorry to say that I am embarrassed right now to be the center of an international spotlight that is shining brightly on Georgia, on Atlanta, and on the Woodruff Arts Center. And why is it that the international media are more interested in what is happening here than the local media? If you think that this is just a bunch of elitist musicians fighting for something that means little to you, consider an Atlanta without the current Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It is well documented that major corporations and businesses look for a culturally rich environment when considering locating in a city. How many businesses will look elsewhere when they can’t offer their employees such a cultural environment? How many current corporations located in Atlanta will think about moving to a location that is more well-rounded than Atlanta?
There are hundreds of lives at stake here – the orchestra musicians, their families, the young people involved in the ASO’s educational programs, the Chorus members, the symphony patrons. When you start spreading out into degrees of separation, the affected lives begin to mount up. The proposed cuts simply cannot happen. They are totally unacceptable. The WAC clearly does not want the ASO to succeed. If the ASO needs to get out from under the WAC umbrella, what will it take to make that happen? Where will they play in the meantime? How will they get their money out of the convoluted accounting practices at the WAC?
We have big problems here, and we need big ideas and big answers. Otherwise, there is only silence.
Brenda Pruitt
Alto II
25 seasons (since 1990)
Think of the long history this work has with the orchestra and chorus -- the life-changing performances behind the Iron Curtain, anniversary celebrations in Symphony Hall, honoring Robert Shaw at the Kennedy Center and on and on. It has marked our shared times of great excitement and great sadness, and it is a piece that requires both an orchestra and a chorus. Is the silence we heard last night what we have to expect for Atlanta’s future? I can’t even comprehend what that would mean.
The orchestra has already been decimated and demoralized by the contract enacted two years ago. I have watched the steady exodus going on over the past few years of fantastic players heading out to other orchestras. This exodus began even before the 2012 contract dispute because it was already evident that the symphony and arts center leadership didn’t see a lot of value in maintaining the integrity of the orchestra. Not only have treasured players left for other places to perform, but equally treasured performers have just given up and retired because they could see the writing on the wall. I hate the fact that such brilliant musicians and dear friends have been forced into these decisions. I really do believe that the WAC wants to get rid of the orchestra, though why they would want to do this is a mystery.
This is not an insignificant issue and I believe that there are some facts that may be unknown to the general public. Some facts tell the story of mismanagement and questionable decisions while others reveal the quality of the musicians we are fighting to save. I am certainly not an expert, but I offer the following information in the hopes it will further inform the public about what is happening on the corner of Peachtree and 15th Streets.
The Woodruff Arts Center is registered as a nonprofit entity through a single 501(c)(3). This means that the ASO, the High Museum and the Alliance Theater all share the same 501(c)(3). The Atlanta College of Art was once a part of that same 501(c)(3), but the WAC decided over strong protest to merge the ACA with the Savannah College of Art and Design, this just months after a major construction project had built new facilities and dorms for the ACA within the WAC. Now SCAD is located in another midtown complex though they use some of the ACA facilities that were built during that construction project. I don’t know the status of SCAD’s 501(c)(3), though I suspect they were already incorporated and have maintained their own number.
In addition to dumping the ACA and merging with SCAD over protests, the WAC also went against the advice of the education departments of all their performing divisions and invited Young Audiences to become a part of their umbrella as well. Now consider this – the ASO, the High and the Alliance all have education departments that offer school programs and other educational activities. They all depend on resources from these programs to help fund their educational activities. Young Audiences also provides programs that go out to schools, and with limited arts dollars available for schools to book arts programs, they often have to choose between YA programs and those of the WAC performing divisions. So why would the WAC in essence ask the competition to come into their house?
The WAC wrings every possible dollar out of its partners and patrons. If the ASO or the High or the Alliance wants to book a room in the center for a presentation of some sort, they must pay exorbitant rental fees to the WAC. If they want a table or chairs, they have to rent those from the WAC as well, and even pay rental for tablecloths and skirts because the WAC requires that all tables be skirted. For many years, members of the ASO Chorus had to pay parking fees to park in the WAC garage, even though all chorus members volunteer their time and pay to make the trip to the center for as many as 280 hours each season. A WAC corporate patron donated parking space to the chorus, but the walk from the upper levels of the 1180 Peachtree Street parking deck is pretty far. Several members of the chorus have physical limitations and are unable to make that long walk, but the WAC only allows them discount parking of $5 on some Monday nights. The rest of the time, they pay $12 a night to park there, even though the chorus is donating time to make money for the ASO and the WAC. During a performance week with three rehearsal nights and three performance nights, that is $65 that they pay in parking fees alone. Multiply that times 6 or 7 performance weeks in a season, and it becomes quite expensive to do this volunteer job that we all love.
The Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra is another group of volunteers who actually pay hundreds of dollars in tuition for the privilege of being a part of that orchestra. They perform amazing concerts that are equal to or better than those of many professional or semi-professional regional orchestras. They perform on the ASO family concerts season and other concerts that bring in money to the ASO and the WAC. They just learned today that their upcoming auditions have been cancelled, with management blaming this decision on the ASO musicians, who, being locked out, cannot attend. The ASYO is one of the leading youth orchestras in the country and students in the Atlanta area plan and prepare for years to be able to perform with them. Now their plans have hit a wall, and it is possible that they will miss this entire year. What a waste of educational opportunities in a state that doesn’t even have an arts requirement built into their core curriculum. And in yet another unbelievable act of bad judgment, the ASO has contacted everyone who has applied to audition asking them if they would like to donate their application fees back to the organization.
The ASO’s Talent Development Program is nationally recognized for its mission to identify and prepare musically gifted African American and Latino students for admission to the country’s top music programs and for careers in classical music. After 20 years, this program now boasts students in the leading conservatories and music schools, as well as graduates performing in all areas of music and teaching the next generations of musicians. One graduate of both the ASYO and the TDP, Mason Morton, is competing tonight at Radio City Music Hall as one of 6 finalist acts in America’s Got Talent. Will we now lose these years of preparation to the indifference of the WAC?
The ASO has won 27 Grammy Awards, many of which are in the categories of best recording (classical, choral, orchestral, opera) of the year. This is equivalent to song or album of the year in the non-classical Grammy awards. How does that compare to other well-known musicians? Quincy Jones and Alison Krauss have also won 27. U2 and Stevie Wonder have 22 each. Bruce Springsteen has won 20, and Aretha Franklin, 18. And what about some of the superstars of music? The Beatles have 8, and Elvis has only 3. Clearly, the ASO is world class, Virginia Hepner!
The ASO Chorus and Chamber Chorus are also world class. They have appeared both with the ASO and with other orchestras in the some of the best-known performance spaces in the world.
The Chorus made its Carnegie Hall debut in 1976 with a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and has returned to perform there 23 different times. It performed in the Kennedy Center for President-elect Jimmy Carter's Inaugural Concert in 1977 and again in 1991 for the Kennedy Center Honors given to Robert Shaw. In 1988, it accompanied the Orchestra on its first European tour, performing in New York, East Berlin, Zürich, Ludwigsburg, Paris, Bristol and London. It has appeared with the ASO for televised concerts on several occasions, including the 1995 national broadcast of the orchestra's 50th-anniversary celebration and the statewide telecast honoring the Chorus's own 25th anniversary. With the ASO it appeared in the Opening Ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games, broadcast worldwide. The Choruses have been featured twice at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, in a residency with the ASO and Robert Spano at California's Ojai Festival, and have taken three trips to Germany with conductor Donald Runnicles to be a special guest of the Berlin Philharmonic at their home, the Berlin Philharmonie. No one needs to make a subjective determination about whether the ASO’s performing forces are world class. The facts speak for themselves.
The city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia woefully underfund the arts. In yet another tale of being at the bottom of a ranking, Georgia ranks 49th in per capita arts funding, behind the other southeastern states of Virginia – 36th, South Carolina – 34th, Mississippi – 32nd, Louisiana – 30th, Kentucky – 28th, Florida – 26th, Alabama – 25th, North Carolina - 21st, Arkansas – 16th and Tennessee – 11th. Only Arizona is lower than Georgia, but they have a state tax that supports the arts. In a 2012 article in Creative Loafing, Flora Maria Garcia, executive director for the Metro Atlanta Arts & Culture Coalition, stated, “Georgia spends 40 cents per capita on the arts while Tennessee spends $1.33 per capita and Alabama spends $1.22 per capita”. Can’t Georgia do any better than this?
I am sorry to say that I am embarrassed right now to be the center of an international spotlight that is shining brightly on Georgia, on Atlanta, and on the Woodruff Arts Center. And why is it that the international media are more interested in what is happening here than the local media? If you think that this is just a bunch of elitist musicians fighting for something that means little to you, consider an Atlanta without the current Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It is well documented that major corporations and businesses look for a culturally rich environment when considering locating in a city. How many businesses will look elsewhere when they can’t offer their employees such a cultural environment? How many current corporations located in Atlanta will think about moving to a location that is more well-rounded than Atlanta?
There are hundreds of lives at stake here – the orchestra musicians, their families, the young people involved in the ASO’s educational programs, the Chorus members, the symphony patrons. When you start spreading out into degrees of separation, the affected lives begin to mount up. The proposed cuts simply cannot happen. They are totally unacceptable. The WAC clearly does not want the ASO to succeed. If the ASO needs to get out from under the WAC umbrella, what will it take to make that happen? Where will they play in the meantime? How will they get their money out of the convoluted accounting practices at the WAC?
We have big problems here, and we need big ideas and big answers. Otherwise, there is only silence.
Brenda Pruitt
Alto II
25 seasons (since 1990)
Thanks for all this info, Brenda. The lack of support for the arts in Georgia is sad, and the WAC is clearly part of the problem here...
ReplyDeleteBrava Brenda!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant commentary!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Brenda. This is heartbreaking. We love you.
ReplyDelete