I was happy to see an interview last week with the new Honolulu Symphony executive director, Tom Gulick and hear an interview with new symphony board chair Curtis Lee last week where both men acknowledged that the situation with the sale of balcony seats has been ill-advised. (Discussed in earlier entry)
They also acknowledged that the musicians need to be paid better and utilized more efficiently. (We got our fingers crossed for you guys
There is still no mention of Tom Gulick as the new ED on the Symphony website though. He isn’t even included on the administrative staff list. I am somewhat bemused at this situation since the Symphony Musicians have linked to every bit of news about Tom Gulick on their website. It would probably serve the musicians better in salary negotiations if the public didn’t know so much about Gulick. The less people know about him, the less sympathetic public opinion will be for him if negotiations go sour and the issue begins to play out in the press.
Of course, it is more in their interest if things go well and the concert hall fills with optimistic people who donate lots of money. So they are disseminating the good news and contributing to the general optimism.
The one thing Gulick said in his interview that I took some slight exception to was that “New York is the only cultural and artistic destination in the country.” I’d say that Boston, Philly, Washington DC and Chicago can hold their own with NY when it comes to attracting artists and cultural tourists. Not to mention that some people might want to visit Minneapolis and check out the new Guthrie Theater. And in the summer, people are happy to make cross country treks to places like Ashland, OR and Cedar City, UT for the Shakespeare Festivals or Charleston, SC for the Spoleto Festival. There are some who might say Nashville is the true center of American culture.
New York might be near the top of the list of very important locales in the artistic and cultural scene, but it ain’t the only one! As a guy who grew up in NY and proudly identifies the state as his origin, even I have to admit the country has a lot of important cultural and artistic destinations.