Abu Bratsche

Honolulu Symphony files for moral bankruptcy

The truly shocking part of this announcement is the fourth paragraph (italicized):

The Honolulu Symphony Society Board of Directors announced on Friday that it has decided to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The announcement comes after more than a week of uncertainty. The chairman of the Honolulu Symphony's board of directors told KITV, that as of last week the symphony did not have enough money to make its payroll.

The city stopped selling tickets to the symphony's November events on Thursday because of rumors that the orchestra would cancel those concerts. The symphony said it will not be able to complete the rest of the season in 2009. It is uncertain if it will be able to complete other dates in 2010.

The board said that it voted on Oct. 30 to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and that it is $1 million in debt.

“Given its current and projected financial status, the society cannot continue to sustain a 64-piece orchestra,” Honolulu Symphony Society Executive Director Majken Mechling said in a written statement. “We cannot continue with business as usual.”

The musicians' union president Brien Matson had been waiting for a call back from Honolulu Symphony officials for one week to learn about the future of the 110-year-old organization.

"Even now, political leaders, citizens, corporations and foundations in this State have an opportunity to step in and become more involved with the future of their orchestra. It is a 'moment of truth' for Hawaii in terms of its actual cultural commitment," Honolulu Symphony Society Chairman Peter Shaindlin said in a written statement.

Why on earth would they vote to file for bankruptcy a week ago and not tell anyone (including the musicians) about it until today? Worse, they went around dodging phone calls from both the press and the union. Worse yet, until Thursday, they were selling tickets to events they knew wouldn't take place because the orchestra had no money and would be embroiled in bankruptcy proceedings for many, many moons.

Is there something in the pineapples out there in mid-Pacific that causes people to treat orchestras so badly?

Update: an article for the Pacific Business News had some even more interesting mendacitiies:

The Honolulu Symphony Society Board voted to file for bankruptcy at a meeting on Oct. 30 but waited a week to announce the decision, until after management met with the musicians’ union.

Which presumably is why management hasn't been returning the union's phone calls this past week.

The article also reported on management's thinking about the future. It's shockingly - strategic:

“Given its current and projected financial status, the Society cannot continue to sustain a 64-piece orchestra,” Mechling said. “We cannot continue with business as usual.”

The board, which met with the musicians’ union on Friday, has proposed reorganizing the symphony as a smaller orchestra whose costs would be more in line with revenues.

“Our suggested goal was to provide a year-round platform of music for our community that will reflect the desires of the community we serve,” Mechling said. “We want to bring to the residents of Hawaii classical, pop, local entertainment and new musical opportunities that the next generation can embrace, appreciate and sustain for the next 110 years.

“In order to do this we must be far more strategic, leaner, more efficient and willing to creatively and artistically work with a substantially smaller core group of musicians that will be the base for our sustainable future,” she said.

Whatever else the management can't do, they have certainly mastered the buzzwords of the current zeitgeist. But perhaps they think it's good that they're willing to "creatively and artistically work with" musicians, albeit "a substantially smaller core group of musicians." This will, of course, require the musicians to be far more strategic - especially in the balancing of their checkbooks.

Do they have strategic food pantries in Honolulu?

Sad news about a friend of musicians

This is not the kind of thing one wants to read about someone whose service to orchestra musicians spans four decades:

A longtime union lawyer was arrested and charged on Tuesday with embezzling approximately $150,000 from a union representing dancers and stage managers at American Ballet Theater, federal prosecutors said.

The lawyer, Leonard Leibowitz, 70, is accused of writing checks to himself from the checkbook of the Independent Artists of America.
…

Mr. Leibowitz was known beyond ballet circles. “Lenny was a very important player in the music industry, especially for the orchestras, who trusted him completely,” said Mark J. Weinstein, executive director of the Washington National Opera. “The players always wanted him. He’s a fun person to be around, he was experienced.”

Mr. Weinstein added that during his stint at New York City Opera from 1983 to 1996 he went through “four or five negotiations with, or rather against him.”
…

Mr. Leibowitz did not speak during his appearance in court on Tuesday. Prosecutors said he was charged with one count of embezzlement of union funds.

Afterward, Mr. Leibowitz’s lawyer, Stephen Flamhaft, said, “I think we will be able, after dialogue with the government, to resolve this.”

According to Alan Gordon, the executive director of the American Guild, his union had been seeking a rapprochement with the Ballet Theater dancers and stage managers who had broken away.

“After it became clear that Leibowitz had taken from their treasury, they asked us to represent them,” he said, adding that the guild and the Ballet Theater dancers “would like to see the Department of Justice aggressively prosecute this case.”

I’ve known Len for 20 years; ever since I started going to ICSOM conferences in the late 80s. I worked with him during my tenure as editor of Senza Sordino and ICSOM chair, and always found him full of wise counsel, as well as possessing an unparalled ability to cut to the heart of any issue. And, of course, he negotiated countless orchestra contracts over four decades, as well as serving as ICSOM counsel and counsel to SSD. This is very, very sad news.

Democracy comes to the AFM

99.9% of elections in AFM locals are barely news even for the members of the local. The other 0.01% happened last week in the Nashville Association of Musicians, AFM Local 257.

It was unusual enough that Local 257’s two executive officers, President Harold Bradley and Secretary-Treasurer Billy Linneman, were both defeated in their bids for re-election. Incumbents are rarely defeated when they run for re-election to local office, and Bradley had been president since 1990. More unusual is that both Bradley and Linneman were also members of the AFM’s International Executive Board, with Bradley serving as AFM International Vice-President. It’s been 25 years since a member of the IEB has lost a bid for re-election to local office.

A bad day for the SSD

Laura Brownell, Director of the Symphonic Services Division for the last 3+ years, announced yesterday that she would be leaving the AFM’s employ at the end of July to work for the Society of Energy Professionals, a union of Ontario electrical generation workers based in Toronto.

The AFM uncorks a stinker

Ed Shamgochian at Sounds is on a roll. He has unearthed a second lawsuit involving the AFM. This one’s a real stinker:

In November 2006, Tom Lee and the AFM filed a federal lawsuit against an anonymous blogger ("John Doe") for a satirical posting at The AFM in Trouble. The posting showed a fake letter from Tom Lee endorsing Mary Landolfi for President of Local 802. Tom Lee's suit alleged trademark infringement for use of the AFM seal, and defamation. (To learn more about defamation on the internet, read Allegro's May 2008 article by Harvey Mars, Esq.)

Because the blogger posted anonymously, Tom Lee and the AFM's lawyers got a court order to require Google to reveal the blogger's identity. (Google owns Blogger, the free blog publishing service used by The AFM in Trouble.) Google provided an IP address (a number which identifies a computer on the Internet) and an email address—but not the name and address of John Doe.

The IP address was owned by Comcast, an internet service provider, so it looked like John Doe was a Comcast subscriber. Tom Lee went back to court and got a court order to require Comcast to divulge the name and address of John Doe. However, Comcast had purged its records, and could not tell which of their subscribers was John Doe.

But Tom Lee still had the email address: nopercap@yahoo.com. (That address is currently undeliverable.) So, Tom went back to court a third time, to get an order requiring Yahoo to unmask John Doe. And here, in June 2006, the court records fall silent.

The International Executive Board (IEB) was first informed in March 2007 about an "election campaign issue...involving a questionable letter of endorsement that had surfaced on the internet." This suggests that the IEB was not particularly "clued in" to this lawsuit, which had been filed over three months (and two IEB meetings) earlier. In addition, the lawsuit is not merely an "election campaign issue" at all. Tom Lee's complaint seeks to "punish Defendant and set an example."

Though we do not know if Tom Lee was successful in unmasking John Doe, we are sure that if he wasn't the plaintiff, Tom Lee would regard his own lawsuit as frivolous. (We will let readers decide for themselves how similar the AFM seal is to the ostrich seal at The AFM in Trouble, and whether they think the posting defames Tom Lee.)

It’s not about the money – unless maybe it is

I’m a little late to this party, but there is a legal action brought against the AFM and Local 47 in Federal court by several Local 47 members regarding the collection of dues on work done under AFM videogame agreements:

Recording musicians David Parameter, Anatoly Rosinsky and Andrew Shulman allege that work dues collected from musicians by Local 47 and sent to the AFM should be returned to Local 47 for work done under one-off buyout recording agreements made available to video game companies by the AFM, citing an AFM by-law that states that work dues are due only for “negotiated agreements.” The musicians claim that the video game agreements were not negotiated and ratified by the membership, and therefore should not be subject to work dues.