Possible musician pay cut alarms members
The musicians of the San Antonio Symphony say they are being asked to take a big pay cut for the 2021-22 season.
The Symphony Society of San Antonio, the nonprofit that runs the symphony, has proposed that the musicians’ base pay be cut from $35,774 to $17,710. That’s not a living wage, said Mary Ellen Goree, chair of the San Antonio Symphony musicians negotiating committee and principal second violin. She said musicians were “shocked and appalled” by the proposal.
A living wage often is calculated at about $15 an hour or about $31,000 a year.
Musicians also would face increased health insurance costs, Goree said.
Kathleen Weir Vale, chairwoman of the Symphony Society’s board of directors, declined to comment on the specifics of the contract because negotiations are ongoing.
“I think that it’s going to be way better than they think,” Vale said.
Playing in the symphony is a full-time job for musicians, who are recruited nationally and move here to play for the orchestra. Most musicians also have side jobs such as teaching to supplement their salaries, which are lower than those paid by orchestras in many similarly sized cities.
Goree and other symphony musicians and their representatives met with the Express
News editorial board Monday morning to talk about the situation.
The proposed pay cut “is going to destroy the orchestra,” said Goree, who has played with the symphony since 1988. Among other things, she said, it would prompt musicians who are able to find better-paying jobs elsewhere to leave and make it impossible to attract high-quality players to replace them.
“We believe that this reduction in the professionalism and the quality of the orchestra is extremely disrespectful to our loyal patrons and donors who expect our superior artistic quality,” Goree said. “We believe that San Antonio deserves to have a professional orchestra like other cities that are in our size range, which includes Nashville, Kansas City and Milwaukee.”
The cut was proposed by the Symphony Society as part of an ongoing renegotiation of the musicians’ contract, a three-year deal that was agreed to in 2019. The musicians agreed to reopen the second and third years of the contract because of the financial impact of the pandemic.
“The pandemic, of course, has changed everybody’s life, every organization’s life, and the third year of the contract is not something that we can afford to do,” Vale said. “We’ve spent so long, so many years, probably being unrealistic about our finances and our concert seasons, and the board of directors has taken a position that we will create a viable budget for this season. The third year of that contract would not have been a viable budget.”
The orchestra comprises 71 musicians and a music librarian.
The musicians’ latest counterproposal is a base salary of $34,100 with optional furloughs that could reduce that amount to $29,700.
Daniel Taubenheim, associate principal trumpet and a member of the negotiating committee, said several orchestras in cities of comparable size also took big pay cuts during the period when in-person concerts were not possible. But the cuts in those places were not as severe, he said, and the musicians’ salaries have since been restored.
He pointed to the Nashville Symphony, where musicians’ salaries were cut from $64,000 to $15,000 but will be restored to $64,000 next season. In Milwaukee, he said, musicians’ base pay dropped from $66,000 pre-pandemic to $36,000, but will go up to $70,000 in the season ahead. Musicians for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra faced no cuts, even during the height of the pandemic — their base pay remains at $57,000.
This would be the second pay reduction the San Antonio Symphony musicians have faced during the pandemic. They agreed to an 80 percent pay cut for the 2020-21 season, which was severely curtailed by the pandemic. The symphony was dark for nearly a year starting in March 2020.
The symphony resumed in-person performances in February with safety precautions in place, including testing requirements and a cap of 35 musicians onstage at a time to allow for social distancing.
David Van Os, the musicians’ attorney, said symphony management often has sought to balance budget shortfalls by cutting musicians’ pay.
Financial issues have been a perpetual problem for the symphony The most recent rough patch before the pandemic came during the 2017-’18 season, following the collapse of a plan for the Symphony Society to hand over management of the organization to Symphonic Music for San Antonio, a nonprofit formed by major funders specifically to resolve the symphony’s stubborn funding problems.
In a chaotic three-day span, the season was suspended when the symphony’s board announced it didn’t have the money required to fulfill it, then was revived in a slightly abbreviated form thanks to an outpouring of community support.
The musicians have pressed management to launch a public fund-raising campaign to address budget issues, but that suggestion has been rejected, Goree said.
“It’s extremely worrisome that symphony management has not informed the public of their financial crisis, nor have they even appealed to our donors for help,” she said. “It seems counter-productive not to be trying to raise the money to keep the symphony onstage.”
The 2021-22 season starts Saturday with a free outdoor concert on Main Plaza. The first ticketed classical program is slated for Oct. 2930 at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.