Just in, from the Chicago Federation of Musicians:
Responding to the distorted information sent by CSO President Jeff Alexander to Musicians of the Orchestra and to the press, the Negotiating Committee sent the following to their members. There are two negotiating sessions tomorrow, before and after the 3:00 pm concert. If no agreement is reached the strike will commence at midnight and twelve-hour picket lines will begin Monday morning, March 11, at 8 am
To: Members of the Orchestra
From: The Negotiating Committee
Re: Last night’s email
Dear Members,
We are sure you have seen Jeff Alexander’s email last night detailing the Association’s version of their contract proposals. While there are some encouraging aspects to the Association’s proposal they do not come close to addressing our fundamental concerns. What remains clear is that the Association is not offering wages that will keep us competitive with other major orchestras. The percentage increase they propose is less than virtually all other major orchestras, dropping us further behind relative to those groups, and does not keep pace with inflation. They also propose to eliminate our guaranteed retirement benefit. The core difference between our plan and their proposal is that our plan has a guaranteed benefit funded by the Association. Their proposal strips the membership of that guaranteed benefit, and shifts the investment risk to the individual member. Jeff’s email paints an unrealistic, snake oil, “rosy scenario” sales job of their proposals. Jeff also fails to mention the other concessions the Association continues to demand, such as reducing sabbatical weeks, reducing substitute pay, and eliminating the $3,000 annual individual pension supplement.
We are grateful to all of you that have reached out in support of the committee. This proves that the attempt to divide the orchestra is failing. The Association’s attempt to subvert the negotiation process is unprecedented in the 50 year history of our collective bargaining.
We appreciate the wonderful support you have given us over this entire process. We are here to serve you and understand our obligation to ensure the future of the orchestra.
On a first listen, Adams’ devil of a concerto wasn’t exactly brimming with good tunes (except for the steal from Mancini). But it did make a fine, energetic, jumping noise that could only have come from an American composer with an eye on popular culture.
Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
LA Weekly (Falling James)
Wang dialed up jazzy, circular flurries of notes on the piano’s higher keys even as a feeling of urgent anxiety welled up from the rest of the orchestra. At times, the musicians in the string section clicked and clattered their bows in unison as a form of percussion. Adams’ half-hour concerto was divided into three sections but the whole piece moved forward seamlessly without a break.
Eventually, Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? shifted into a slower, calmer section as the strings segued into a gentler interlude, which Wang anointed with light, tinkling phrases on piano.
They are talking through the weekend.
Message from the CSOA:
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) has offered the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), represented by the Chicago Federation of Musicians (CFM), a new contract providing for improvements in salary and working conditions, as well as substantial retirement benefits. On Friday, March 8, CSOA President Jeff Alexander shared the Association’s current offer in a letter to all the members of Orchestra. As negotiations continue, the Association remains committed to reaching consensus on a new agreement allowing our concert season to continue uninterrupted.
We have been informed of the death of George Neikrug, renowned for his recording of Bloch’s Schelomo with Stokowski. Neikrug died at his home near Boston on March 8th, a day after his 100th birthday.
Starting out as principal cello of the Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles oirchestras, he went on to teach at Detmold, Oberlin, University of Texas-Austin, and (from 1971) at Boston University.
He is survived by his sons, the composer Marc Neikrug and the actor Barry Neikrug.
The important German-born conductor Michael Gielen, a major figure in the advance of modernism, died on Friday of pneumonia in Austria. He was 91.
The son of an opera director and a soprano, Rose Steuermann, he was raised among the Arnold Schoenberg circle and grew up in Argentina when his parent had to flee Nazi Germany.
The family returned to Europe in 1950. His father became director of Vienna’s Burgtheater and Michael learned his craft as an assistant conductor at the Vienna State Opera.
After five years as music director of Sweden’s Royal Opera, he gave the world premieres of Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten and Reimann’s Traumspiel, establishing a reputation as a champion of new music. Other works he premiered include Ligeti’s Requiem, and Stockhausen’s Carré.
He was GMD at Frankfurt Opera 1967-87, principal conductor of Belgian National Orchestra 1969–73, and music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1980–86) and of Southwest German Radio (1986–99).
He retired five years ago due to failing eyesight.
All orchestras are flexible. If you behave in the right way as a conductor, you will find flexibility on the part of the musicians. On the other hand, if an orchestra like the Berlin Philharmonic has worked with a great conductor like Karajan for twenty-five years, and they have been doing Brahms’ First Symphonyevery second month of every season, and so many times on tour, they tend to play the way they’re used to, and it is unwise to interfere too much. Bruno Walter used to say, ‘Don’t interfere if everything goes well.’ So if you know this kind of tradition on the great classics and romantics, and if you come to an orchestra like the Vienna or the Berlin Philharmonic, it is wise to know what they’re used in order not to interfere too much.
Fascinating essay by Ted Gioia in theAmerican Scholar on why Hollywood identifies evil with classical music.
For Hollywood, classical music has become the trademark of villains. On screen, orchestral melodies accompany the meditations of mad geniuses and pouting serial killers. Norman Bates practices the Moonlight sonata in Psycho II. Sociopath Lou Ford relaxes to Richard Strauss throughout The Killer Inside Me. Alex Forrest, in Fatal Attraction, plots her revenge while listening to Madama Butterfly. And on the BBC’s Sherlock, Moriarty waltzes to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie on his iPod as he steals the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Baroque music, in particular, seems to satisfy the cravings of a deranged mind. The very talented Tom Ripley plays Bach between shifts as a symphony-hall bathroom attendant. In Schindler’s List, a Nazi officer pauses to play a bit of Bach on a piano while his troops massacre the Kraków ghetto. Hannibal Lecter waves a bloodied cudgel like a conductor’s baton while brutalizing two security guards to the Goldberg Variations in The Silence of the Lambs, and in the sequel the same piece plays as Lecter cooks Paul Krendler’s brains table-side. In cinema psychographics, mid-murder is the ideal time for musical appreciation….
