It's fine that orchestra management is portraying the bankruptcy as a new beginning. But what's spooking players is the hunch that it's the beginning of the end. Who's right?
That this is playing out primarily as a dispute between musicians and management is the first clue that what we have here is a labor negotiation masquerading as a bankruptcy case. Does this case belong in bankruptcy court? Will Judge Eric L. Frank decide at some point - the case continues Monday - to simply send the two sides back to the negotiating table?
Rather than continuing talks over concessions with musicians, the Kimmel Center, and Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, the Philadelphia Orchestra Association has moved to court to seek the changes it could not otherwise get.
"Now we have some hammers to accomplish it," association lawyer Lawrence G. McMichael said recently.
The real question, though, has less to do with whether the association can successfully extract concessions from its partners than with what it will come up with as a plan for its own future (though the two are surely related).
The "strategic plan" is a dry name for a document - still unfinished - that has everything to do with what kind of orchestra this is going to be. Leaders have made few details public, but the plan will outline where the orchestra plays (China, or Upper Darby?); whether it will program light classics or Ligeti, in what proportion, and where; what kind of artistic partnerships with Simon Rattle and other conductors it will grow; how much time it will spend each year returning to the Academy of Music.
The musicians have agreed to a salary freeze and work-rule changes, and have made other concessions.
