Thoughts on the Jacksonville mess….

The mess in Jacksonville is something about which I should probably keep my mouth shut.  But since that has never been my strong suit here are some reflections on that situation, given by someone who was part of the Music Director Search a few years ago.  Here goes nothing……..

First of all, strikes are rarely good in this business.  I can think of several instances in living memory where an orchestra went on strike and two things happened: 1) it took years for the organization to recover; and 2) what the orchestra won from the strike barely covered the lost wages from said strike.  Generally these things are messy and they end up being very detrimental to the organization.  That being said, lockouts are even worse.

There is almost never a decent reason for a lockout.  The ill will generated by a lockout is profoundly worse than that of a strike.  Lockouts generally center around two monetary issues: wages and health care.  Orchestras are expensive affairs because of these two things.  It just costs a good deal of money to have 80 some-odd people on a payroll, and there are all sorts of other costs involved with these beasts: running a venue, caring for instruments, PR, etc.  And there is the added lunacy of the non-profit world.  An orchestra has to rely on the Board of Directors to raise large sums of money every year.  No matter how mature the Development department of an orchestra is there is only so much money that will be raised by corporate sponsorship and direct solicitation.  So an orchestra is in many ways at the mercy of the competence of the Board, not only to raise millions of dollars to keep the organization afloat, but also to represent the orchestra to the community.  If the Board is not motivated to continually expand the reach and scope of the orchestra in the community at large then the tendency is that the orchestra will never be on a consistently firm financial footing.

As I mentioned I was part of the Music Director search some years ago in Jacksonville, so my recollections might not be representative of the current Board of Directors.  None-the-less there are things here that really concern me.  A number of folks have pointed out that there seems to be a $3 million dollar deviation in the budget between the numbers that the Board is presenting and what everyone else is finding.  This smacks of the gerrymandering that goes on in our Federal Government.  The Feds can get away with it.  The government can just print money or pass the buck to future generations (thank you, all of you, who believe in that ridiculous notions of “deficit spending” and “trickle down economics” – my children and grandchildren will be paying off your bills for generations to come).  But because we live in the non-profit world an orchestra can’t get away with this.  You simply cannot cook the books.  An independent audit of the finances of the Jacksonville Symphony would seem to be an absolute necessity at this point.  At this moment none of the numbers coming out of this mess can be trusted.

But there are things about the MD search that really gave me pause.  My gut feeling was that the Board really looked on their role as more of a “good old boys club” rather than as serious supervisors of a community asset.  As I said this is just a gut feeling, and this was some years ago, but that feeling really colors my take on the current situation.  I can’t help it.

There was one other thing that I remember that tells me a lot about the situation in Jacksonville, and it is very personal.  When I went down there for the second time my wife came down for a couple of days.  Jen is a clarinetist, Principal in Duluth, and she teaches at two colleges in town, freelances, etc.  She is extremely busy, and she managed to rearrange her schedule to come down at the Board’s request for a couple of days.  The impression I got was “why didn’t she come down for the entire week?”  When I explained that she is a working musician that just didn’t seem to go far.  One response we got was “well, she will really enjoy volunteering for the orchestra when you are Music Director.”  Frankly she was insulted and I can’t blame her.  She is not an extension of me – she is my wife.  She has her own life and her own career, but that was not of interest to some people.  I got the impression that they expected her to be my arm candy and were sorely disappointed when that was not the case.

Again, I must admit that this was just our impression at the time.  I have no idea if the Board has changed over the ensuing years or if there is a different mentality at the Board level these days.  There are many reasons why I am NOT Music Director there, and some of them are my own damn fault (note to self – keep your big mouth SHUT!!!).  But I must admit I am glad I’m not in the middle of this madness.  Whatever, this lockout needs to stop now.  It helps no one, and the longer it goes on the worse it shall be for the Jacksonville Symphony.  The musicians deserve to have a Board that is unafraid of going to hell and back to ensure that the orchestra is a vital component of the Jacksonville community.  They also deserve to be able to earn a decent wage and live decent lives.  Until the Board realizes this and stops looking at them as leeches on the payroll of the organization then this symphony will remain in profound trouble, which is to the detriment of the entire Jacksonville community.

And now I shall keep my big mouth shut.