Sacrifice. Passion. Danger. The Story of the ASO

The message "The Music is Ongoing™" was conceived in 2012, while we were still chuffed about Stanley Romanstein's assurances that the chorus was 'cherished' ... and by his attempt to elicit the robotic chanting of: 'Negotiations are ongoing!' by the chorus.  (We heard that he did the same rigamarole with his own staff.)

In 2012, when contract negotiations stopped being 'ongoing' and the musicians were locked out ... it was Cyn who said it first:  whatever happens, the music has to go on.  that's it!  The ASO was, suddenly, being commoditized by the people who had pledged themselves to preserving the artistic future of the orchestra.   The Music, an ineluctable necessity for all of us in the chorus, became irrelevant in the hands of profit-hungry, cost-reducing management. Irrelevant, a side issue, not even a talking point.

That's when the word "Music" on the t-shirt went red.

Throughout the ensuing painful month, the ATL Symphony Musicians put the music first.  Locked out of their hall, they brought the music out into the community.  The art that shapes them as individuals, as an ensemble, ultimately gave them courage to safeguard their artistic integrity.  What they elected to sacrifice, what they chose to protect, determined the outcome.

They're locked out again.  But make no mistake:  if there is going to be any more line-drawing in the sand, it will be done by the ASO musicians:  this far, and no farther.  This is not a whipped, demoralized orchestra inhabiting the ghost of an old one.  ASO musicians are used to making sacrifices.  They are intimately connected with the transforming passion of music. Danger of losing their livelihoods is, perhaps, a new experience for some.

Members of the ASOC understand clearly the enormity of the threat and we are committed to insuring that this travesty, engineered by WAC and executed by ASO management twice in as many years, never, ever happens again.