Orchestra bends knee to Freemasons
OrchestrasThe desperate San Antonio Philharmonic has signed a deal to perform at the Scottish Rite Auditorium, a Masonic self-designated cathedral.
By way of welcome, music director Jeffrey Kahane and Executive Director Robert Trevino are planning a Freemason-themed concert:
Treviño said he hopes the space will be ready in time for a spring season performance of a specially-themed concert programmed by Kahane to honor Freemasonry, a fraternal organization with roots dating to Medieval times in which the Scottish Rite organization maintains membership.
Several well-known classic and modern composers were Masons, as members of the organization are known, including Mozart, Jean Sibelius, John Philip Sousa, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, Kahane said, and his program will include their music.
Couldn’t make it up.
Where’s the problem?
The problem is the building requires a $750,000 assessment JUST to find out what needs to be repaired (estimated $50M total), but the orchestra had to cancel this week’s shows due to “legal and financial” challenges
https://sanantonioreport.org/philharmonics-new-concert-home-in-historic-downtown-building-will-require-costly-updates/
Different estimate, lower by a factor of 5-10, in the article. Still might not be an easy lift!
Might be easier to raise funds for that than for paying musician salaries, however. Donors often prefer tangible projects to covering ongoing expenses.
Totally meaningless publicity stunt.
SA Phil is in major financial trouble and has no money or even real intention of making this their home.
The recent drama regarding board members suing had something to do with the lack of financial transparency and requesting an audit.
They can’t even pay the musicians for a concert in October.
This marks the end of SA Phil, a great orchestra an evil union in AFM destroyed.
So, for those of us with a bit of distance from the action, could you explain just what those pulling off this alleged publicity stunt have to gain from doing so? Will they be showered in glory if it fails?
Part of the problem is that while the Masons once might have been, at times and in certain places, a benevolent fraternal organization, they also have a cultish, elite, oligarchic side that is fundamentally anti-democratic.
Self-designated cathedral? I’d assume all the Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, whatever cathedrals out there are also self-designated. Or is there some official common cathedral designation body for all denominations?
Since they are not actually a religion, it seems very weird to call the place a cathedral.
Like the LSO!
The point may be that the rent at the fancy place (Tobin Center) is entirely too high for non-profit performing-arts groups.
It wouldn’t be the first time (or the second) that a non-profit performing-arts group in the U.S. was priced out of a venue ostensibly built FOR the non-profit performing arts.
Even the nation’s Kennedy Center, which is a trust, occupies itself largely with commercial, i.e. for-profit, Broadway product now, with its opera company given only a fraction of the dates in its “Opera House.”
Public infrastructure is being misused to enrich agents and Broadway heirs, and Board ignorance leaves “Wicked” and “Walküre” to “compete for entertainment dollars.”
As for San Antonio’s poor orchestra, what’s wrong with its using a Freemason venue?
The San Antonio Symphony was a resident company at the Tobin Center since it opened in 2014 until the SAS’s dissolution in 2021. The SAS enjoyed a significantly discounted rate in addition to having access to booking at the venue before any external organizations. There are currently 5 other resident companies at the Tobin: all non-profit performing arts groups, and all thriving.
It may have something to do with the fact that the union local picketed/threatened to picket other performances at the Tobin Center and their CEO’s residence that the Tobin wasn’t too keen on working with the philharmonic again. Restraining orders and complaints to NLRB were filed. Let’s please move beyond pretending the local isn’t the ones running the show in this ensemble.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with working with a Freemason venue. The problem is the fact that this organization, having shown little to no fiscal responsibility, is trying to fundraise $50-100M.
As others have pointed out, they could not afford to pay their musicians for concerts just this month, internal schism of the board, which is allegedly over an internal audit (again, financial clarity), and embroiled in legal troubles.
The building is not handicap accessible. At least, when I talked to someone in San Antonio a year ago that is what he told me.
It was the dream of the late Mark Richter, founder of the former San Antonio Opera, to renovate the Scottish Rite Temple as a performing arts center. The acoustics in the auditorium are excellent.
Jaw lying on the floor!
Regardless of whatever acoustical or strategic benefits this deal may bring, the way it’s being pushed to the media by SAPhil management is appalling. First Baptist Church has been our home for two years, during which time there was no trouble selling tickets or putting on school concerts. Now we frame them by innuendo as the source of “substantial rental fees” holding the orchestra back from success? Just say we’re tired of playing at a church, have alienated the Tobin permanently, and can’t afford to return to the Majestic due to abysmal (<50%) ticket sales so far this season.
"Having co-ownership in the building will help solve several issues for the philharmonic going forward, said Executive Director Roberto Treviño, mainly in avoiding substantial rental fees required to rehearse and perform in its other venues, relieving pressure on the orchestra’s bottom line."
https://sanantonioreport.org/philharmonics-new-concert-home-in-historic-downtown-building-will-require-costly-updates/
Trevino IS the pressure on the orchestra’s bottom line.
Hypothetical headline in a few weeks: “Freemasonry sues orchestra for breach of agreement. Philharmonic countersues for damages.”
What’s the problem? Two dying institutions working together. Freemasonry is fading away in the US just like other fraternal clubs like Elks, Lions and others have. Symphony orchestras in some areas are also on verge of fading away. Some masonic temple auditoriums have excellent acoustics; Szell’s Cleveland recordings were mostly done down the street from Severance Hall at the Masonic Temple there.
Masons are alive and well.
Ormandy’s Philadelphia recordings with RCA were done in a Scottish Rite “cathedral” fallen out of disuse (as most of them have) on North Broad street in the 70’s and beyond. The ballroom had good acoustics, the academy of music did not as far as recording was concerned. The recording control room was set up in what was the men’s bathroom of the ballroom, which itsalf was a two story balconied affair fit to record things with chorus and soloists like Rachmaninov’s Bells, and Prokofiev’s Nevsky.
Am I… missing something? What’s wrong with the Freemasons?
The SAP deserves every break it can get. I had no luck with the Scottish Rite Temple in Houston when looking for a rehearsal space for my youth orchestra several years ago. The fellow in charge said he wasn’t sure he would want “a bunch of kids traipsing through the facility on a Sunday afternoon.” This is the same organization that sponsors the Shriners Children’s Hospital. That building has since been demolished.
Ellington was a honorary mason, along with numerous honorary memberships. (An honorary Kentucky colonel, believe it or not.) Nothing indicates that he was an active member of the organization. Don’t know about Satchmo.
Duke was a Prince Hall Mason. Different group entirely made up by, of and for Black men because the Freemasons would not allow Blacks to join. It is absurd to associate a TX chapter of the Freemasons with Duke Ellington. Kahane needs to stick to the 88 things he knows about. Leave history to bigger people.
Satchmo was a Knights of Pythias, a different fraternal order founded in 1864. He did claim to be a Mason from time to time.
In the jazz world, in addition to Ellington, Dizzie Gillespie, Eubie Blake, Nat King Cole, W. C. Handy, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Paul Robeson, Cab Calloway and Sun Ra were all members of Prince Hall, the Lodge at the time for African-American Masons. On Broadway, Irving Berlin, George Cohan were both Masons.
If the SR worked as a venue, they would have never built the Tobin.
And since when does a letter of intent earn a signing ceremony? Call me when some money changes hands.
Also, didn’t I read that Treviño couldn’t manage his tiny office and budget? Now he’s going to book, staff and cater events, maintain and rehab a historic building, fund raise for the Phil and for the SR restoration, put on and promote concerts with the Phil while selling no more than 15% of the tickets in any venue, and fight off a half dozen lawsuits. All with NO money in the bank and no staff to help.
I was at a gala a couple nights ago and the word there was unanimous “no more money for the philharmonic as long as Treviño is there.”
CMI hits their budget every year. They run clean and quiet. No picketing. No lawsuits. Qualified people in key positions. And they pay better than the CBA. They’ve won the support of the politicians, the corporate donors, the Tobin and local philanthropists. SA has chosen their orchestra for better or for worse. That’s just the way it is. I’m not saying it is a good thing but it is a fact. The Phil in desperation to stop people from asking questions or going and performing with CMI chooses to gaslight its membership and sue them if they don’t comply. Nobody wants to be connected with that type of group or behavior. Hence, no donors. It is over.
Unless they can play baseball, basketball or figure out how to land commercial airplanes in it, the City will not be helping them. Too much else to pay for that people actually want.
Look – Tobin Center rent is nothing to sneeze at. However, this move when you don’t have money in the bank is mind-boggling management and donors will take notice. This project will never happen because the donors can’t trust current leadership with their money.
Get rid of Trevino and MAYBE there’s a fighting chance to save symphonic music in SA.
The title of this article is deeply disturbing, especially one originating in the UK, where like the US, the Masons do so much for their communities as well as national charitable works. For instance, the Shriner’s hospital system started by a Masonic brother. The Scottish Rite is an offshoot of the blue lodges most of you are aware of, the Shriner’s are another offshoot. Masony started in the United States with the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1733. Paul Revere was the Grand Master of that Lodge. George Washington was a Mason, as well as signers of the Declaration of Independence; Benjamin Frankin, John Hancock, Richard Stockton, William Ellery, Joseph Hughes, William Hooper, Robert Treat Paine, George Walton and William Whipple. Norman, of interest to you, Moses Michael Hays from 1788-1791 was the Grand Master of Massachusetts, Jewish, Paul Revere was his deputy. Hays brought Masonry to the South establishing the first lodges in South Carolina (Charleston) and Georgia (Savannah). The Scottish Rite, actually originated in France as seperate entities which were compiled as a group, known today as The Scottish Rite in 1801 in the United States.
My point being, if The Scottish Rite is involved with the financially troubled San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, it is an act of mercy to keep them performing, not to end them, or demonstrate some sort of power over them. As Norman pointed out, Masonry has a long history of Music. The most important Masonic hymn was written by Fromental Halevy, yet another Jewish Masonic composer. In Britan, William Boyce, Thomas Arne, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Thomas Parry, even The Who’s John Entwhistle, all Masons.
End point, one of the most important characters of a Mason is charity and in this case, despite the misnomer of calling the Scottish Rite Temple there a Cathedral, it is not a church, nor is it a religious building per se. It is a large building and when not in use during the week for Masonic and Scottish Rite events, most rent out their rooms and halls for weddings and other events as long as they are not political. The one thing you will find in every Masonic Hall, or Lodge is an organ. Masons love their music. They are accepting of all brothers who believe in some sort of higher power, religion irrespective. Masons also do not discuss politics within their lodges and other Masonic buildings.
This orchestra will always be known to me as a group so hungry for a gig that they stood by in support while it sued one of their own. Shame on all of them. The paranhamonic.