DSO Strike Continues A Month Later

Interlochen Public Radio | By Linda Stephan

Published November 2, 2010 at 12:00 AM EDT

<a href="mailto:guerraj@umich.edu">By Jennifer Guerra, Michigan Radio</a> It's been about a month since the Detroit Symphony Orchestra went on strike. Concerts at Orchestra Hall have been cancelled through November seventh, and more cancellations are likely...since no new contract talks have been scheduled. Still Playing Inside Christ Church Cranbrook, in Bloomfield Hills, an orchestra is warming up, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Usually they'd be performing at Orchestra Hall, but because they're on strike, the musicians are performing on their own here at this church. "It's just heartbreaking; absolutely heartbreaking," says Tim Murphy. He and his wife Claire paid twenty bucks each to attend the sold-out concert, all of which goes to the striking musicians. Murphy says he's not taking sides in the disagreement, but he says something has to be done, fast. "This is a world class orchestra, and people on this level have to get paid and they have to recognize that this is a jewel," he says. "And it's an investment. And once it's gone, it's gone, because these people will move away, find other positions, and then this orchestra will no longer have that cache they've had for all these years." Big Problems Right now, the DSO is one of the top ten orchestras in the country. But it's a top ten orchestra with a nine million dollar budget deficit. So, to stay afloat, cuts need to be made. At least that much the two sides agree on. The musicians proposed a 22 percent pay cut that would gradually be restored. Management wants to cut current players salaries by a third, new players' salaries by 42 percent, eliminate tenure, reduce the size of the orchestra, and require the players to teach and perform outside of the regularly scheduled concert season. Haden McKay is a cellist for the DSO: "It's probably the most extreme attack that's ever been made on an orchestra in the United States." McKay has played with the orchestra for 27 years, and he says the cuts management proposed would irreparably harm the quality of the orchestra. "It seems that our management is trying to make an example of the Detroit Symphony as to how an American orchestra in a time of crisis, which may or may not be just a convenient reason, can be completely reshaped," he says. And, McKay says, orchestras around the country are watching to see what happens. DSO president Anne Parsons wouldn't agree to be interviewed for the story. But one member of management that would talk is Gloria Heppner, and even she doesn't think management's proposal is viable. "Not if one wants to maintain a top tier orchestra it isn't," she says. "I mean, we're fighting for the maintenance of a first class orchestra. We could have a community orchestra, but that, believe me, is not what this is about." A Strategy That's Failed To better understand how the DSO got to this point, I turned to University of Michigan music historian Mark Clague. "Orchestras are classic nonprofit institutions," he says. "They don't pay their bills by their own activities, so their revenues do not cover their costs. So every time they put on a concert they lose money." Clague says that means orchestras need good fundraising strategies. But several years ago the DSO cut its development staff way down to save money, and instead of trying to expand their donor base, they focused on raising a lot of money from a small number of donors. Then there's General Motors and Chrysler: They used to sponsor series and education programs, but can't afford to so anymore. The DSO also built a multi-million dollar addition to Orchestra Hall and used the interest on their endowment to pay the mortgage. But the endowment took a huge hit in the recession. "So to pay off the mortgage interest, you now have to cut into the principal of the endowment, so that endowment is now eroding. And worse yet, the Detroit Symphony is in violation of its mortgage terms, and as far as I understand it, the banks would have the right, if they wished, to seize the Hall," he says. So the solution? "I don't know," Clague says. "I mean I know the musicians hope that, I think everybody hopes, that some sort of angel donor would come in and fix this basically budget imbalance." It's not unheard of. An angel donor swept in and donated $85 million dollars to save the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra last year. And in 1951, an heir to a Detroit chemical company fortune came up with a plan to save the DSO after it had been shut down for about two years.