Tag Archives: music

April 29, 2025 · 9:06 pm

Centering Patrons at the San Francisco Symphony

Sometimes my cat swallows several times in a row and starts licking her lips. I, having lived with her since 2012, understand that this is a sign to grab a roll of paper towels, because she is about to hork up a hairball.

In much the same way, when a major American orchestra launches a gauzy website under the guise of informing the public about a labor negotiation, I, having followed this industry since 2012, understand that this is a sign to grab a roll of paper towels, because said orchestra is about to hork up a hairball.

The SF Symphony Forward Site

Over the past year or so, the management of the San Francisco Symphony has been attempting to negotiate a new contract with its musicians. This process has not gone smoothly.

We can guess that matters are about to come to a head because the organization recently launched a new website called SF Symphony Forward, which you can see here.

I’m not sure how the acronym for this website is meant to be pronounced, but I am calling it “sfsf”, which is an approximation of the vocalization I make while cleaning up after my cat.

I find the SFSF website fascinating. I could write multiple theses about it. (Unfortunately for everyone, if time permits, I may.)

The reason I’m so obsessed? It’s a management-run site about orchestra negotiations that seeks to center patrons. Its very first sentence reads:

Our goal is for the San Francisco Symphony to be a thriving nonprofit organization that exudes creativity, performs at the highest level, and has a broad and passionate patron base.

My italics.

And look at the background image. It’s the audience in the hall.

Wait, isn’t centering patrons good?

Yes, centering patrons is good. Collaborative is good.

The problem is, the San Francisco Symphony management team has spent a year being anything but collaborative.

They want to sound like they’ve centered patrons, but they’ve never actually centered patrons in the past, or explained how they’ll center patrons in the future.

If you’re new, here’s a brief summary of the backstory so far. Note the distinct lack of patron-centering throughout.

  • In December 2018, the San Francisco Symphony signed star conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen to serve as music director, beginning in the 2020-21 season. 1 By all accounts, most patrons were thrilled by the choice, as was the board, which expressed eagerness to support him and his ideas.
  • Unfortunately, around the time of the pandemic, Salonen and the board appear to have had some kind of falling-out. In short, management hired him for his ideas, then came to loggerheads with him over the realization of his ideas.
  • A house divided against itself cannot stand, and in March 2024, Salonen issued a shocking statement: “I have decided not to continue as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, because I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors does.” This is not the way these kinds of things are traditionally handled. It was announced that Salonen would serve out the remainder of his contract through June 2025, then depart. 2
  • The symphony’s leadership team didn’t treat this loss of talent as an institutional emergency, or express any remorse, which rubbed many patrons the wrong way. If anything, leadership seemed to be relieved that he was leaving.
  • After driving away Salonen, the leadership team began telegraphing an organizational change, giving a number of interviews about their new strategy in the summer of 2024. In a bid to save money, they floated playing fewer concerts, investing less in new music, pausing touring, etc. (That said, a $100 million hall renovation was still being actively discussed.3)
  • The leadership team didn’t win over many folks in the court of public opinion. Lots of patrons felt sad, angry, or confused about what was happening. It didn’t help that the leadership team was routinely coming across badly in their interviews.
  • At the end of a June 2024 profile, during which the board chair and CEO appeared particularly hapless, business writer Adam Lashinsky went so far as to muse: “Now it will be up to San Francisco audiences to decide for themselves if the moves the current symphony leadership makes to replace Salonen are up to snuff–or if they need replacing themselves.” 4
  • Patrons got increasingly angry.
  • In June, one showed up to a Salonen concert and flashed a sign that said “F*** the board” in Finnish. She was told by the orchestra that if she ever did such a thing again, she might be banned from the hall. She told the press she was contacting the ACLU to explore her options. 5
  • In September, the leadership team pursued something that felt an awful lot like a dry run for an orchestral labor dispute with the singers of the San Francisco Chorus. 6
  • The orchestra’s first Salonen-less 2025/26 season was released last month. It has been roundly panned for its lack of cohesion and artistic vision. There is a sense that something important about the identity of the ensemble disappeared with Salonen. Critic Joshua Kosman wrote an article for the San Francisco Chronicle titled “S.F. Symphony’s next season has a gaping hole — and it underscores the institution’s crisis.” 7
  • To sum, the current leadership team at the San Francisco Symphony became the first American orchestra to fumble its negotiations so badly that the public started revolting against them before a work stoppage even began.

Now, after six months of relative silence, enter the SFSF website, which has carefully honed its message to appeal to…patrons.

Wow! So does this new SFSF site meaningfully address any of the concerns that made patrons rebel in the first place?

No.

Is it normal for orchestra managements to create these kinds of sites during labor troubles?

Yes. If negotiations go well, they will be conducted privately. If things get a little spicy, a quote or two might be released to the press. After the negotiation is finished, a press release hailing the achievement will be posted on the orchestra website’s press room page. Then everyone will move on with their lives. This is how the contract negotiations at other large American orchestras played out this past season.

On the other hand, if shit is about to hit the fan, and a labor dispute seems possible, a management team will hire a PR firm, buy a new domain name, and build a new website there to frame the story on their terms.

These management-built sites invariably employ certain dog whistle phrases. They will read innocently to normies just tuning in, but freaks like me know they come from the comms playbook of crises of yore.

“Average compensation”

During adversarial negotiations, orchestra managements like to use the term “average compensation.”

“Average compensation” is a figure that the public has to accept in good faith. Obviously we don’t have access to all the figures used to calculate it, so we have to trust that management is doing so correctly.

This figure will also paint a skewed picture. A handful of principal players can negotiate a much higher salary than their colleagues, due to their increased responsibilities. It’s not an especially enlightening practice to lump them all together, but it does have the benefit of making many musicians look like they’re being paid more than they are.

On the other hand, musicians in a labor dispute tend to prefer using “base salary” as a measurement. Obviously, this is a lower number, which makes the musicians look more sympathetic. But it also has the advantage of being a more concrete number to work with, and it doesn’t rely on management math like “average compensation” does. It also makes comparisons with peer orchestras easier.

“Ten weeks of paid vacation”

Ten weeks of paid vacation? What are we, Norway or another civilized country?

We are not. Here’s the truth. Orchestral musicians in America working at this level, playing this amount of repertoire, don’t get many vacations. They are athletes of their art. They play for multiple hours a day at home every day, even when they’re not rehearsing as an ensemble or performing onstage. Therefore, this is less “ten weeks of paid vacation” and more “ten weeks of working at home.”

As you can imagine, in the past, this framing has been used to paint musicians as lazy and entitled. It has been critiqued for over a decade in patron advocate circles. A blogger friend of mine named Scott Chamberlain wrote an entry about this phenomenon here after the National Symphony Orchestra management team briefly tried a similar tactic in 2024, and that was a rewrite of a blog entry that he’d originally written during the 2012-14 Minnesota Orchestra lockout. There is nothing new under the sun, etc.

“A dedicated administrative staff”

Immediately after discussing musician compensation, the SFSF Finances page veers into a discussion of administrative staff compensation.

Obviously the orchestra won’t come out and say “our greedy musicians are keeping us from paying our administrative staff more.” But it’s also unclear what other conclusion a reader is supposed to take away from the juxtaposition.

Is the staff at the San Franscisco Symphony underpaid? Almost certainly yes, with a possible exception for the guy at the top. “You will know them by their fruits” is solid advice whether you’re religious or not, and I think that the field could have an interesting conversation about the particular fruits we’ve watched CEO Matthew Spivey bear during his tenure so far.

That said, low pay for administrative staff is a major industry-wide problem. It is also a loaded and complicated one, given that the applicant pool for an administrative staff position at a major American orchestra will be very different from the applicant pool for a musician position at the same American orchestra, and obviously the various qualifications for various types of jobs are very different.

Another problem the administrative staff faces is crippling work stress. Now, I don’t claim to know exactly what life is like right now for the SFS’s administrative staff. But I can take an educated guess that it isn’t great. Why? Generally speaking, most people don’t enjoy working inside an organization where stakeholders aren’t working well together. Again, I watched the Minnesota Orchestra’s lockout last from 2012 to 2014. I heard the stories from musicians and administrative staff alike.

If an institution has genuine concern for the well-being of their administrative staff, and can’t afford to pay them what they’re likely worth, the most valuable thing that a leadership team can do is to get everybody rowing in the same direction. It speaks poorly of their captaining ability if they start pitting one oar against the other.

“Business model”

When leadership teams are seeking to shrink a symphony orchestra, they like to refer to the orchestral “business model.” People are generally more receptive to cuts to a business than to cuts to a non-profit.

I once heard Kevin Smith, the beloved CEO who oversaw the post-lockout recovery of the Minnesota Orchestra, say something along the lines of, it’s an orchestra’s job to lose money. The function that an orchestra serves in society is to convert dollars into intangible benefits for a community that are otherwise very difficult or outright impossible to access or assign a dollar value to. A major orchestra is a kind of magical currency converter.

Of course orchestras can’t be wasteful. But there are better terms than “business model” that more accurately describe this process.

“The union representing the members of our orchestra”

Managements seeking concessionary contracts love to insinuate that musicians are dumbass dreamers being screwed over by their union. It’s easier to blame an outside force for any intransigence, rather than the faces that patrons see onstage every weekend.

The reality, however, is that an outside force will not be dictating the terms of this negotiation. The orchestra members themselves, not some faceless shadowy orgiastic cabal, will be voting on whether to ratify their next contract.

“Sustainable”

Orchestra-shrinking enthusiasts love the word sustainable. Sustainability is a kind of spiritual experience for them. They go absolutely nuts for it.

Unfortunately, this kind of for-profit terminology also creates a permission structure for an organization to self-harm, if creative and collaborative people are not firmly ensconced at the top. After all, what’s more sustainable: a symphony orchestra or a quartet? If sustainability is your primary goal, what is the backstop to keep you from shrinking yourself out of existence? And how strong is that backstop — especially when there’s no music director on staff to stand up for the art?

Many orchestras over the past fifteen years have faced cuts made by people obsessed with the word sustainability, to the point where the word has become a joke in the patron advocacy world. It comes with multiple decades of baggage. It’s shorthand for chainsaw. And if the folks in San Francisco using it here don’t know the history of the movement, they aren’t in a great place to advocate for the interests of passionate patrons.

There’s so much more

There’s so much more to dig into here, but alas, I don’t pay my electricity bill with writing about the labor travails of symphony orchestras.

But even if I never get another word out about this situation, I wanted to point out why every patron should approach this site with caution.

They’re talking about centering patrons, but they’re also employing the same language that we’ve seen in past labor disputes, when patrons were decidedly not centered. Beware.

What are the patron takeaways here?

First off, I stand by what I wrote last June in my entry “The Second Problem of the San Francisco Symphony.”

This orchestra has two problems.

The first has to do with whatever financial hole this orchestra is in.

The second has to do with a lack of vision, ambition, and galvanizing leadership, especially in the wake of Salonen’s departure.

The SFSF site talks a lot about the former, but it has yet to address the latter in any kind of useful way.

There’s this chart, I guess, under the VISION tab, but it’s non-specific and uber-corporate. Is this the plan for the San Francisco Symphony, or the mission statement for the Choreography and Merriment Department from Severance?

“GROW.” – Seth Milchick (Severance, 2025)

The paragraphs attempting to elucidate the chart don’t help, either. In fact, this is a whole other blog entry right here. What the fuck does any of this really mean?

…?

*

Here are some potential ideas for patrons to pursue, to gently but firmly push the leadership in a genuinely collaborative, pro-passionate-patron direction.

  • Don’t lose sight of the two problems: the financial side and the leadership side. Don’t let concerns about finances eclipse concerns about leadership. They’re connected.
  • Push for a town hall with CEO Matthew Spivey and board chair Priscilla Geeslin. Communicate your thoughts to them if you believe that the past year’s shenanigans have damaged the institution’s reputation. Have them explain what they learned from the Salonen meltdown, and what they did wrong. Ask that they clarify what they’re doing to both attract and retain a first-rate music director in future. Make them work hard to justify altering the heart of this orchestra. Remember, they aren’t there to serve the musicians, and the musicians aren’t there to serve them; everyone in that organization is there to serve you. Without the people who buy tickets, this entire project has no point.
    • If they say that nobody does town halls, or if they’re too skittish to mount one, you can tell them that Minnesota Orchestra CEO Kevin Smith did it ten years ago after their lockout, and the fact he was the kind of person who did, helped to rebuild community trust more than the shiny SFSF website ever will. 8
  • Follow the musicians on social media, and never take anything you can’t verify yourself as gospel, from either side.
  • Are you a non-profit professional good with numbers? Good. This is your moment. Dig into everything. Post information online. Share what you find with friends.
  • Keep your guard up even when things sound good on the surface. Make this organization walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to centering patrons.
  • Talk about this. Push your way into the conversation.

In short, if you’re not happy about what transpires next, keep being loud. Obviously there’s never going to be any proof, but it sure feels like the orchestra has spent time and money over the last six months retooling their PR strategy to better appeal to patrons. If true, that’s fascinating. I don’t remember that ever happening before.

In the end, if you can push them just a little bit further, from name-checking you in their PR, to actually employing your input to build something sturdy and new, that every stakeholder can be excited about… Well, that might be the aversion of disaster. That might actually center the patron. That might be the start of something real.

Footnotes

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/arts/music/san-francisco-symphony-esa-pekka-salonen.html ↩︎
  2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/arts/music/esa-pekka-salonen-leaving-san-francisco-symphony.html ↩︎
  3. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/davies-symphony-hall-19651838.php ↩︎
  4. https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2024/06/20/san-francisco-symphony-troubled/ ↩︎
  5. https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/san-francisco-symphony-protest-ban-19550127.php ↩︎
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/20/arts/music/san-francisco-symphony-chorus-strike.html ↩︎
  7. https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/sf-symphony-2025-salonen-missing-20228326.php ↩︎
  8. https://www.minnpost.com/artscape/2014/08/interim-ceo-describes-changes-programming-staff-and-culture-minnesota-orchestra/ ↩︎

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February 26, 2025 · 10:42 pm

A Classical Musician’s Starter Guide to America First Programming

The best composers are American, because America is the greatest nation on earth in the history of mankind, which it always has been, and always will be, if we can come together to make it great again.

The success of the Great Re-Greatening will take all of us working together in tandem: funders, donors, philanthropists, sponsors, contributors, backers, supporters, corporations, administrators, as well as artists.

One of the ways these many stakeholders can work together is by recontextualizing the biographies of composers, which have so often been hijacked by activist leftists.

Over the last few years, many classical music organizations fell into the trap of promoting DEI programming. DEI (an abbreviation for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has unfairly prioritized the work of women, racial minorities, and homosexuals, at the expense of beloved classics like Schubert’s Ave Maria.

This is wrong. However, some composers have been unfairly painted as DEI and “woke.” It is time that we see them through another, more objective lens: the lens of America First.

Yes, thanks to recent political and cultural developments, we now have the freedom to appreciate the work of various American heroes in a new, “common sense” way.

There are countless composers we can reclaim from the far left. However, here are three greats who warrant a closer look by performing arts center board chairs as they program concerts celebrating America’s 250th birthday.

Amy Beach

Amy Cheney Beach, despite her unfortunate maiden name, was a true American hero. She was born in 1867 in New Hampshire, one of the original thirteen colonies, famous for its state motto “Live Free or Die.”

Even in her early years, she embraced rural life. At four, she composed piano pieces in her mind while visiting her grandparents’ farm.

She grew up to become such a talented pianist that in her teen years, various people urged her parents to send her to Europe to train.

However, in true America First spirit, the Cheneys decided to keep her at home, an outcome for which she was always grateful.

When she was eighteen, she entered into a happy marital union with Dr. H. H. A. Beach, who, being in his middle age, was well-established in his medical career, and could provide financially for her.

Amy Beach emphasized and embraced her femininity and identity as a married woman by frequently performing under the name Mrs. H. H. A. Beach.

During her marriage, Mrs. Beach turned her attention to composing. Pulling herself up by her bootstraps, she taught herself orchestration out of books, steering clear of university indoctrination. The result of her study was 1894’s Gaelic Symphony.

Listeners have noticed striking similarities between the Gaelic Symphony and Antonín Dvořák’s 1893 New World Symphony. However, despite its name, the Gaelic Symphony is inarguably the more American of the two works, and should be the more popular one by far. Antonín Dvořák’s symphony was written by a small European man who was enthusiastic about trains, and he employed melodies from racial communities that would later unfairly benefit from far-left Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Mrs. Beach’s work, however, is all-American through-and-through, making this symphony a wonderful option for schedulers to consider programming.

Florence Price

Florence Price was born in 1887 in the Bible Belt in Little Rock, Arkansas, a ruby red state that President Trump won by 30.6% in the 2024 election.

Her initial education was at a Catholic convent, where she learned about the faith professed by our vice-president JD Vance. She continued her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she earned a double major in piano teaching and organ, a specialty that would come in useful in religious settings.

It’s important to note that Florence Price was never shy about her love for Jesus, penning and publishing a variety of songs based on spirituals. Perhaps her work could be programmed at the Kennedy Center, given that Ric Grenell, the head of that organization, is planning “a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas” there in December 2025.

In 1912 Florence married a lawyer and had two daughters with him, making him a proud “girl dad.”

Price relocated to Chicago in the 1920s. Despite the crime and corruption rampant in the city, she became a well-respected musician and composer.

She showed true competitive entrepreneurial grit in 1933, when her first symphony won a $500 award from the Wanamaker Foundation.

It’s unclear why her work has been sidelined for so many years. Fortunately, we now have the freedom to stop litigating the past, and we can look forward to the future: one full of classical music programs prominently featuring girlboss American composer Florence Price!

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein was born in Massachusetts in 1918, a few months before the United States demonstrated its military prowess by routing the Central Powers in World War I.

His father was a brilliant businessman who operated the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company. Samuel initially discouraged his son’s interest in becoming a professional musician, understanding the difficulty that musicians face in becoming productive members of society, but he eventually relented.

Bernstein attended Harvard. Although most Ivy Leaguers live in an ivory tower, certain iconoclastic America First heroes like Elise Stefanik, Jared Kushner, Pete Hegseth, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., can and do emerge from Harvard as citizens of the people. Bernstein would embrace their America First agenda, becoming the first American-born conductor of a major American orchestra.

Bernstein was a devoted family man. In 1951, he married beautiful actress Felicia Montealegre, with whom he would have three children. Their marriage was extremely happy.

Bernstein enjoyed a close friendship with fellow American composer Aaron Copland, another America First composer. Together Bernstein and Copland took great pleasure in discussing various aspects of masculinity.

The 1961 film version of Bernstein’s musical West Side Story earned a box office of $44.1 million on a budget of $6.75 million, representing a 653% profit.

A patriotic song by Bernstein about America

Leonard Bernstein understood the value of using art to unite, rather than divide, as so many leftists would use it today. He famously said after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy:

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.

There will always be those who use art to push their own poisonous social and cultural agendas, especially in times of metaphorical or literal violence. It has always been so. But now more than ever, we must take Bernstein’s words to heart. In the Trump 2.0 administration, we must ensure that the music continues more devotedly than ever before.

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September 19, 2024 · 4:17 pm

The San Francisco Symphony: When the Ship Hits the Fans

Last night, ABC7 News’s Lyanne Melendez ran a report about the ongoing governance imbroglio facing the San Francisco Symphony. You can watch and read a transcript here.

It was a treat to get a video interview with SFS CEO Matthew Spivey and board chair Priscilla Geeslin. More of this, please! It is beyond fascinating not only to listen to what they say, but to watch how they say it.

A few things jumped out that I wanted to point out, because it feels like things are really starting to accelerate here. Without a change in course, it’s pretty clear that the S.S. SFS is headed straight toward an iceberg.

When it comes to the SFS meltdown, the media seems to smell metaphorical blood in the bay.

I continue to be struck by the fact that the current leadership of the San Francisco Symphony really has no defenders in any press: local, national, or international. They are getting hammered by all quarters, by all media. And if they were hoping to win over ABC7, that clearly didn’t go well.

The ABC report introduces Spivey and Geeslin like so:

[Conductor Esa-Pekka] Salonen didn’t actually begin his tenure until 2020 and we all know what that infamous year meant for the world, COVID-19.

All concerts were canceled through June 2021.

By then, the two top people directly responsible for hiring Salonen had left. In their place, a new leadership was assembled, Matthew Spivey and Priscilla Geeslin.

Melendez starts off the interview with a brutal opening volley:

“You will perhaps be remembered as the folks who let, quote, ‘a bucket-list, brilliant conductor, go.’ So a simple question to both of you, what the hell happened?“

Geeslin takes a deep (irritated?) breath. Spivey is the one who answers. He uses the same talking points that they’ve been pushing since the summer, before this whole affair really started snowballing down Mount Doom. If those talking points weren’t equal to the moment then (and they weren’t), they absolutely aren’t equal to the moment now. And the interesting thing is… Spivey sort of seems to know it? Throughout the entire interview he has the uncertain, uncomfortable air of a panicked high school student giving his first presentation.

He also doesn’t really answer the “what the hell?” question, either:

“You know, I think this is a moment of change for every arts organization, certainly in San Francisco but really across the country. We are seeing as arts organizations emerge coming out of the pandemic they are thinking differently about who they are and how they connect and relate to the world around them.”

I will grant Spivey that this is a moment of change. (Although I also think there’s a solid argument to be made that every moment is a moment of change for every arts organization.) And I agree that arts organizations are “thinking differently about who they are” and their relationships to their communities post-pandemic.

But.

Do you know what’s not happening in the industry? Generationally talented music directors departing in dramatic fashion, and a serious audience rebellion brewing over issues of governance. Maybe that’s a you problem, my friend.

Reality check: Major American orchestras have not responded to the pandemic by instituting long-term cuts in musician compensation.

I think it’s important to remember that major orchestras “thinking differently about who they are” does not mean that they are also embracing austerity and systematic stakeholder alienation.

Here is how the SFS’s peer orchestras have responded to the post-pandemic world when it comes to musician compensation.

  • In June 2022, the New York Philharmonic ratified a contract that took steps to restore cuts made during the early days of the pandemic. According to the Times, the “decision to restore pay is a milestone in the Philharmonic’s recovery, and it offered some hope that the worst of the pandemic, which cost the orchestra more than $27 million in anticipated ticket revenue, had passed.” 1 
  • In August 2023, the Boston Symphony Orchestra agreed to a three-year musician contract. The press release about it is coy as to exact figures, but it underlines that the contract includes “a ‘catch-up’ increase for the musicians following a three-year pandemic pause in their wages under the existing contract approved in 2020.” It also provides for greater scheduling flexibility for musicians. 2
  • In September 2023, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra agreed to a three-year musician contract that included 3% annual salary increase and increased benefits. 3
  • In October 2023, the Cleveland Orchestra agreed to a three-year musician contract that included “annual increases in minimum weekly compensation of 4 percent, 3 percent, and 3 percent, respectively, over three years, in addition to a one-time, $5,000 agreement ratification bonus each.” 4
  • In October 2023, the Philadelphia Orchestra agreed to a three-year contract that included “increases in the agreement [of] 6% in the first year, 4.5% in the second and 4.5% in the third.” 5
  • And circling back to the first bullet point, today, on 19 September 2024, the New York Philharmonic (very inconveniently for the San Francisco Symphony) announced a new contract, under which musicians will see a raise of 30% over the next three years. 6

(Note: I’m leaving the Los Angeles Philharmonic out of this because their pay packages include compensation associated with housing and it’s harder to compare contracts using an apples-to-apples approach.)

Spivey is right about one thing: American orchestras have been re-thinking their identity and their missions post-pandemic.

But the facts are clear: this re-thinking doesn’t include imposing concessionary contracts.

To be such an outlier in a relatively stable negotiation cycle like this one, as the SFS will be, is a leading indicator of major institutional instability. You never want to be in this position in the best of times, but you especially don’t want to be in it when you’re searching for a world-class music director, after you very publicly dumped your last one.

It goes without saying, if the SFS genuinely has to make these cuts to survive, it owes the public a detailed explanation as to exactly why. How has the SFS so dramatically underperformed its peers?

SFS leadership clearly views executing a music director’s vision as a budgetary “extra.”

Geeslin then takes a swing at the PR pinata. She describes an orchestra’s budget like this, in the context of Salonen’s expensive artistic vision:

“‘You sit around a table as a family and you say we have this much money, this is what we can spend this year. Do we take a vacation, do we not take a vacation, do we go out to dinner more, do we do less. It’s saying that this is the money we have to spend and this is how we’re going to utilize it to make sure that by the end of the year we still have a reasonable amount of money to move forward,’ stated Priscilla Geeslin, the Board Chair of the symphony.”

First off, if the stakeholders at the SFS are family sitting around a table, then there aren’t enough seats at that table. The musicians have been trying to sit down at the table for months to start contract negotiations. 7 But for a long time, management refused to set the table: i.e., they put off negotiating, presumably to ratchet up the pressure for as long as possible before the contract expiration date. Meanwhile, dissatisfied audience members are raising hell by holding up signs in Finnish, and have been threatened with expulsion from the dining room entirely. 8

Second off, it’s striking that Geeslin regards the expense of executing a music director’s vision as being in the same category as a “vacation” or “eating out less.”

Because…no???

If we absolutely must use a tortured “family budgeting while gathered round the kitchen table” metaphor, here’s a more accurate description of what’s going on:

  • One parent divorced the other beloved parent and doesn’t want him at the table, and refuses to go to therapy about it. The beloved parent has gone mute in public. Everyone has to pretend this is normal.
  • The kids are being asked to choose between extras like vacations and eating out.
  • Meanwhile, the proposed budget the parent is passing around is calling for only paying for part of the electric bill and mortgage.
  • There is no credible plan to increase household income. The best the children hear is platitudes about how hopefully the next spouse will help to increase the size of the household income pipeline over the next few years.
  • There is a search committee that has just been formed to find a new spouse. Everyone has the sinking feeling that no one in their right mind will want to marry into this family.
  • By the way, the spurned spouse was supposed to help increase the household income back when he joined the family — then, just like what happened to Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show in 2009, was given no time to actually do that.
  • The parent is talking about spending $100 million renovating the house. 9
  • The entire time this circus is going on, there’s an inebriated sibling pounding on the window bellowing “Family therapy! Family therapy!” (That’s the patrons and patron advocates.)

Audience advocates dropping in on the SFS’s meeting at the family table

I grudgingly admit that some orchestras can be like families sometimes, but…let’s also be real. In the end, workplaces aren’t families. Hell, when money is at stake, most families stop being families.

In any case, I’d hope that serious people can recognize that workplaces are not families when the people on top are deciding how an $80 million dollar annual budget is going to be spent, and also have the power to lock out other members of their family.

We need a better metaphor.

“The best people in life are free” – Taylor Swift in “New Romantics” and also Matthew Spivey, apparently

Spivey then returns to yet another stale, months-old talking point:

“There is no question in my mind that the San Francisco Symphony is one of the most extraordinary ensembles in the world, period. And I think what defines that is not budget size. Some of the most impactful moments that we’ve made don’t necessarily cost much at all,” insisted Spivey.

What a mind-blowing paradigm shift. So you don’t actually get what you pay for? There’s no truth to that?

If budget size is so disconnected from outcomes, why is the San Francisco Symphony spending money on a CEO? Maybe artificial intelligence could perform this job for less, with better outcomes. How about we ChatGPT our way out of this thing? Some of the most impactful leadership suggestions don’t necessarily cost much at all.

Also, what exactly are these impactful moments that are happening for not “necessarily…much at all”? Share your tips, Mr. Spivey!

“And another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad” – dril (2014); also, SFS leadership (2024)

They both maintain there is no animosity between them and Salonen.

Oh, I’m sure. I imagine y’all are just super close. I bet you have picturesque picnics on Alamo Square every Saturday morning, and then you bicycle across the Golden Gate hand-in-hand, then you all go home and watch The Room eating popcorn giggling and pointing out all the local landmarks where you’ve spent time together. I’m sure.

Hilariously, the next paragraph is:

Salonen did not want to be interviewed for this story nor did he allow us to film any rehearsals or performances that include him.

And okay, so, yes, this is obviously funny because everyone living in reality can tell that the “no animosity” thing is a lie, or at the very least a desperately uncomfortable corporatization of human emotion.

But also. Take a step back. That lie says something, no? If they’re able to lie about something as obvious as this, what’s keeping them from lying about other things that aren’t so obvious?

The SFS leadership truly believes the problem is external, not internal

“We are committed to working with our musicians and I trust them, I really do. Our challenge is not an internal one, our challenge is an external one,” added Spivey.

Well, no. Reference the list of recently signed orchestra contracts above. I think it’s pretty clear the best case scenario here is that you have both internal and external challenges.

The symphony believes one way to attract audiences is to showcase what few cities have, a one-of-a-kind performing arts scene, which also includes the ballet, the opera, the SF Jazz Center, and the Conservatory.

“This is an incredible concentration of great art institutions and west of the Mississippi you don’t have a concentration like this,” explained Geeslin.

As soon as I read this, I saw a Drudge-Report-style siren gif flashing in my mind’s eye. This quote could easily be used as ammunition for the argument that that Geeslin, Spivey, and the board are chasing a pipe dream to merge the SFS with the San Francisco Opera.

It sounds nuts, but the two were once part of the same organization. And Patricia Geeslin’s husband, financier Keith Geeslin, is a former president of the San Francisco Opera.

Folks have been raising the possibility of this being a potential end game in places like the San Francisco Standard and on the site of SFS Patron Alliance, an audience advocate organization.

And look, I’m not taking sides about what’s real or what’s not regarding this rumor. But. Rightly or wrongly, the idea that the merger is a goal is in the public discourse, and this quote is not helping assuage folks’ fears.

To be clear, Spivey has gone on the record with the San Francisco Standard saying he “claims ignorance about these claims.” 10 But to skirt so close to a conspiracy theory by downplaying the symphony’s importance in the context of the city’s wider cultural identity is certainly…a choice.

At the very least, why do these people not understand optics 101?

The SFS leadership wants support without accountability

Melendez closes her interview with the question:

“What do you want viewers to get out of this interview?”

Geeslin answers:

I want them to come to the hall, I want them to come and support us. I want them to come and enjoy the music and our orchestra and to celebrate the San Francisco Symphony.

What’s left unspoken is that audience members who are upset about the organization’s direction have been profiled in the Chronicle. A woman who held up a sign with naughty Finnish words on it about the board was even threatened with being barred from the hall altogether. 11

So let’s be honest: Geeslin doesn’t want all viewers to come. She wants the viewers who agree with her to come to the hall. She wants viewers who support her governance choices to come to the hall. She wants viewers who are happy to see Salonen leave to come to the hall. (Of course the big problem there is that Salonen doesn’t seem to have a lot of anti-stans in San Francisco…)

If she thought otherwise, she’d engage in better faith with the people who disagree with her path forward. She’d express more remorse and humility for letting Salonen slip away. She’d have an actual plan, not just concepts of one.

Again and again, over the course of months, with plenty of opportunities to alter course or to moderate, both she and Spivey have demonstrated they don’t care about customers who disagree with their vision (such as it is).

After the 16-month-long Minnesota Orchestra lockout, that organization started making progress after 1) people at the top left, and 2) their replacements were game to do things like hold town hall meetings to listen to stakeholders’ concerns. That turnaround timing wasn’t coincidence.

I don’t know what else to say about these people. They aren’t serious. They aren’t participating in this desperately important conversation in good faith. They never have. They’ve decided on a destination, exact route TBD, and they are determined to stick with their plan, damn the torpedos. Meanwhile, their local media is skeptical of them, even aggressive toward them. Their patrons are pushing back. Their music director is embarking on a season-long cold war against them. Most urgently, their musicians are caught in an impossible situation, with their livings and careers potentially in the balance. It’s excruciating.

And that’s not even wading into the matter of the hardball that Spivey, Geeslin, and their associates are playing with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. According to AGMA, the SFS management is seeking to cut the chorus’s budget by 80%. 12 It is impossible to see this as anything but a shot across the bow directed not only to chorus members, but to the orchestra’s musicians and the pro-Salonen customer base generally. (As of 19 September, the chorus has voted to authorize a strike if necessary, meaning that opening night is in jeopardy. 13 )

Do you want to know who one of the most important local constituencies was when it came to rebuilding the shattered Minnesota Orchestra? Members of the Minnesota Chorale. Don’t mess with chorus people!

In the end, these people are not living in the real world with the rest of us. I don’t know why. Maybe because they don’t have to. They are metaphorically adrift in the San Francisco Bay, their only flotation device a set of arm floaties. Of course the inner workings of every major arts organization is different, and I don’t know who – if anyone – has the power to nudge the S.S. SFS in a new direction, one that might restore at least a modicum of seriousness, maturity, and credibility. But if that person or that group of people is waiting for a moment of crisis to step in, the time has come. The crisis is now.

Footnotes

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/arts/music/new-york-philharmonic-restore-musicians-pay.html ↩︎
  2. https://dgpuo8cwvztoe.cloudfront.net/uploads/Press-Releases/Boston-Symphony-Orchestra-Approves-New-Three-Year-Labor-Agreement.pdf  ↩︎
  3. https://cso.org/experience/article/15276/musicians-of-the-cso-and-the-csoa-vote-to-app ↩︎
  4. https://www.clevelandorchestra.com/globalassets/editorial/press-releases/2023/20231002_negotiations-statement_2023.pdf  ↩︎
  5. https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-orchestra-musicians-agree-3-year-labor-deal-salary-increase/ ↩︎
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/19/arts/music/new-york-philharmonic-labor-deal.html ↩︎
  7. https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2024/06/20/san-francisco-symphony-troubled/ ↩︎
  8. https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/san-francisco-symphony-protest-ban-19550127.php ↩︎
  9. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/davies-symphony-hall-19651838.php ↩︎
  10. https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2024/06/20/san-francisco-symphony-troubled/ ↩︎
  11. https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/san-francisco-symphony-protest-ban-19550127.php ↩︎
  12. https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/sf-symphony-chorus-faces-unprecedented-wage-cuts ↩︎
  13. https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/sf-symphony-chorus-threatens-strike-opening-night-now-doubt ↩︎

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June 6, 2024 · 3:38 am

The Second Problem of the San Francisco Symphony

Yesterday the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article headlined “How will S.F. Symphony navigate through crisis? Its leaders discuss the future in first interview.”

The authors spoke with Chief Executive Matthew Spivey and Board President Priscilla Geeslin. Awkwardly, only the ghost of music director Esa-Pekka Salonen was present.

The San Francisco Symphony finds itself at a turning point. Along with the New York Philharmonic and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, they are in the middle of musician/management negotiations. San Francisco’s contract expires in late November. They also recently got word they’re losing their music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, who announced back in March (in his own separately released statement, no less) that he would not be renewing his contract due to fundamental disagreements with the orchestra’s board of directors. The official management response to the loss of one of the most sought-after music directors in the world has been a resounding “meh.” Patrons are crying about it. Now the orchestra is steaming full speed ahead toward triple icebergs: leadership loss, a potential work stoppage, and financial crisis.

Before we start, here’s my personal theory of the case:

The San Francisco Symphony is dealing with two separate problems. (The word “problem” is underselling it. They’re crises, really.) The two are entangled, but they’re fundamentally separate.

The First Problem is whatever happened to them financially between 2010 and 2024.

The Second Problem is, there’s a leadership problem. There’s a communications problem. There’s a values problem. There’s a respect problem.

Everything else I’ll ever have to say about this leadership team will be colored by that assumption: that there is a money problem, and then, apart from that, a vision problem.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in and read some tea leaves.

The San Francisco Symphony has experienced a tumultuous period since Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen announced his decision not to renew his five-year contract. 

“I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors does,” Salonen offered as the impetus for stepping down from the role after the 2024-25 season in a statement released on March 14. 

Since then, it has come to light that the 113-year-old orchestra has struggled with budget deficits for more than a decade, with the 2022-23 season expenses at $78.6 million and revenue only at $67.4 million.

Okay. So. Temporarily bypassing the whole pushing-your-music-director-until-he-goes-overboard bit… Numbers. Budgets. Timelines. Deficits. These are facts. These are verifiable. These are the building blocks to creating a shared reality: the first step to solving the First Problem.

By the way, if you want to dig into the First Problem, you should! To entice you, here’s as brief a summary as I can muster, conveniently formatted in one long run-on paragraph so the normal people can skip it.

The San Francisco Symphony maintains an invaluable online archive of 990s and audited financial reports. For context, this is much more information than American orchestras traditionally provide to patrons on their websites. However, in this particular context, where we need to assemble a timeline of the past decade-plus to fact-check claims, it’s a double-edged sword: yes, it’s a lot of information, but also…it’s a lot of information. Many geological epochs ago, I wrote a lot about my hometown band, the Minnesota Orchestra; I return to their example a lot. They provide an annual year-in-review report that includes mission highlights and simplified financials. (Sample here.) By contrast, the SFS separates those two things in their reporting. They have a Season Review / Impact Report about their artistic accomplishments, but that document doesn’t include any financials, so you have to rely on 990s and financial reports for numbers. The SFS’s 990s and dense financial reports can be tough for a normal person to extract meaningful information from, but yesterday afternoon I tried my best. Check out the sixth page of the audited financial statement for what seemed to me to be the best overall summary of what’s going on. The 2023 financial report records “total revenues and releases” of $89,416,000 and “total expenses” of $83,179,000. Now obviously a non-profit orchestra is not making $6 million in profit annually. It just looks that way because of the comparatively complicated way that the SFS has chosen to summarize its finances for laypeople. Back in March, Janos Gareben at the San Francisco Classical Voice actually tried digging into this and even contacted the orchestra to get some clarification. A SFS spokesperson told him that “the $144.9 million shown on the [990 form for fiscal year 2022] includes ‘realized’ gains from investments but does not include ‘unrealized’ gains or losses.” Still, it appears that Gareben wasn’t able to completely untangle the numbers, either, as his ultimate conclusion about them was “Fiscal year 2021 showed revenues of $66 million against expenses of $53 million, and fiscal year 2020 had revenues of $65 million against expenses of $73 million.” To the best of my knowledge, no outsider has done a deep-dive on these numbers to explain to the layperson, so my understanding of how exactly the orchestra got from there to the deficits is mushy. To be clear, I’m not saying anyone cooked any books or anything like that. I’m just saying, there is so much information here, and the SFS is such a behemoth of an organization, it’s tough to find the story inside the numbers without an expert, given the veritable ocean of information we have right now.

Orchestra CEOs around the country will agree: I am not someone who should be interpreting 990s. I make my living writing about dead people. So until some independent outsider steps in to untangle all this – (dare I hope, a member of the press?) – I can’t offer much commentary about the San Francisco Symphony’s First Problem.

However, as a patron who has watched organizational implosions awfully similar to this one for years and years, I can offer commentary about the San Francisco Symphony’s Second Problem. That’s the ground I’m most comfortable on, anyway. So let’s move on to that.

Salonen has declined to speak publicly about the Symphony or his impending departure.

But in a joint interview with the Chronicle, CEO Matt Spivey and Board President Priscilla Geeslin addressed the organization’s challenges and future plans.

It is so striking to me how Salonen has ghosted these people. Either that, or he wasn’t invited to the interview in the first place. Which would be insane, because yes, he announced his departure in March, but he doesn’t actually leave until June 2025. I know this because the San Francisco Symphony press room announced his June 2025 departure as the “culmination” of his contract.

That’s one way to announce a breakup! “My husband announced our divorce as the culmination of our relationship following the completion of our marriage contract.” From this press release.

Lest we forget, the headline of this piece is: “How will S.F. Symphony navigate through crisis? Its leaders discuss the future in first interview.” Guys, you can like it or not, but Esa-Pekka Salonen is the San Francisco Symphony’s leader, and involved in navigating the crisis. He should be here.

I’m curious, did the reporters ask why he wasn’t? Did they leave an empty podium? An empty chair? Did they set a place setting for him at coffee? I’ve heard he’ll drink coffee without cream.

If you normally don’t follow orchestras, I cannot underline to you enough how weird it is for a music director to be absent from a high-profile article about the orchestra’s future. Sure, he’s a lame duck, but he’s the duck with the baton! And healthy orchestras respect their ducks, even when they’re lame! This metaphor is getting away from me.

“We as an organization have the opportunity to be a major part of the revitalization of this city and its incredible arts and culture ecosystem,” Spivey said at Davies Symphony Hall.

“Sometimes the most interesting and creative ideas have been born out of a limitation or a restriction in some way.”

I’m sorry, what?

I made this when I was a child and had no money for a real violin. Was this a new business model all along??

From this point on, the article turns into an search engine optimized Q&A because…sure. Why not?

What is the current financial situation at the San Francisco Symphony?

“Last season, we were facing what would have been roughly an $11 million deficit on a roughly $80 million budget,” Spivey said. But thanks to what he called “extraordinary, one-time contributions,” the organization has stayed afloat. Moving forward, the Symphony says it is planning within realistic financial resources and focusing on building a stronger philanthropic base. 

“It’s important going forward as we expand the range of our programming, that we have the opportunity to connect to a broader audience,” Spivey said, highlighting the need to develop relationships with new potential donors. 

Okay. Sounds like Spivey and Geeslin are looking for a music director who might want to rethink the funding model, rethink audience development, reanalyze outreach, etc.

Someone who (and I’m just spitballing here) might say something like, “I felt that orchestras, even before the pandemic, were facing a challenging time, especially in this country but also globally. The funding model needs to be rethought. The audience development needs to be rethought. The outreach needs to be reanalyzed.”

*tapping my earpiece* I’m sorry? That was Esa-Pekka Salonen in May 2022 in an article entitled “Why he decided to choose San Francisco: Salonen chalks it up to fate”? Well. Okay.

Are there projections for future deficits in the 2024-2025 season?

The budget for the 2024-2025 season is still under consideration. 

My reaction to this:

“We’ve had a lot of conversation internally as we’ve been doing the planning for ’24-’25 and beyond,” Spivey explained, “to make sure we understand what level of resources we have and what we can expect in terms of ticket sales and the philanthropic pipeline going forward.” 

This timing feels batsh*t.

Spivey just said they’re working with an $80 million annual budget. The San Francisco Symphony’s fiscal year starts on September first. That’s in eighty-seven days. Like…is he still considering minor budget adjustments or is he talking major ones? Are there questions about the level of resources he has? What’s all happening in that pipeline? What are the projections? What’s the plan? What do you mean?

In short, how much improv is happening within an eighty million dollar budget for a season that starts in eighty-seven days? The repertoire has been announced. The guest artists have been booked. We already know that. Again:

So I guess there are a few potential interpretations here. Either this is a lie, or a misquote or misunderstanding, or just bull…or there’s an unspoken insinuation that there’s a big ticket item that’s still being negotiated.

And I wonder what that could be…

From this press release.

How will the financial situation affect the Symphony Gala on Sept. 25?

Oh, thank God someone asked.

Geeslin stated the “biggest departure” during the annual event is…

Me, timidly: Salonen?

Geeslin stated the “biggest departure” during the annual event is the scaling back of the pre-performance reception, and the elimination of the Symphony’s elaborately decorated tent for the dinner and after-party.

Oh. Well. Close.

This has the same energy as Ruth Bukater standing on the deck of the Titanic and calling “WILL THE LIFEBOATS BE SEATED ACCORDING TO CLASS?”

Any room for a gentleman, gentlemen?

But thank God we got the reporting on the elaborately decorated after-party dinner tent. We needed to know the fate of the elaborately decorated after-party dinner tent.

Are there efforts to attract new donors from the tech and venture capital sectors?

Yes, the Symphony is actively seeking to build relationships with new donors across the Bay Area. But Spivey noted that what’s “really important to understand is that the time it takes to build a relationship, when they arrive at a place where they’re deeply invested and feel inspired to give philanthropically, is long… it takes anywhere from seven to 14 years for donors to mature in that way.”

Butbutbutbutbut! You did – you – you already – you did the thing already! About this! You hired Salonen! A big part of the answer to attracting these new donors was supposed to be hiring Salonen! Who, by the way, you did not push to keep to give seven to fourteen years to. Am I crazy? Do we not live in the same reality? You’d been addressing this! Then you undid what you started doing to address this! Without acknowledging you ever undid what you started doing to address this!

Are there plans to expand the board and set minimum trustee-giving levels?

They said the Symphony is always looking to expand its board. 

“Right now, our board sits at about 50 people, and we can go all the way up to 80,” Geeslin said. 

All current board members give at the Maestro Circle level ($15,000 minimum).

“Some people think having a board minimum, you leave money on the table. I’m of the mind that we ask people to give at a certain level when they come in and then, of course, they will hopefully give more,” Spivey said.

Well, my first concern is obviously:

Will people even want to join without an elaborately decorated after-party dinner tent?

My second concern is… I know I’m just a writer, but, with effort, I can handle the calculation. Thirty more people, times a fifteen thousand minimum, equals… $450,000.

And that’s great. If we can find thirty more people with $15,000 a year to spare who also want to jump aboard a sinking ship with a reputation for organizational dysfunction, that’s a hypothetical whole entire $450,000. And that’s not nothing!

It’s also 38% of the 2024 median listing home price in San Francisco.

So…you know. That’s cool. That’ll…help.

What are the plans for renovating Davies Symphony Hall?

Funding to evaluate potential changes to the Symphony’s home venue ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2030 has long been secured, but any plans for the renovation are in the preliminary stages.

The current goal is to get the entitlement from the city that would allow the possibility of renovation ahead of any historic landmark status for Davies that may restrict the process.

“We began working with the architect Mark Cavagnero to imagine what a potential renovation could look like,” said Spivey. 

“There’s no obligation to rush into a renovation project,” added Spivey. 

I’m glad to see that the savings from the elaborately decorated after-party dinner tent are going to be re-invested in the venue proper.

I think a lot of people who haven’t watched similar disputes play out over the years are really going to be stuck on this. The orchestra can find the money to spend multiple hundreds of millions of dollars on a building but not enough to close a budget deficit? And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but honestly? It’s possible.

Here’s a tough-to-swallow truth about big ticket donors and foundations. They love edifices. This is a whole documented phenomenon. You can look it up. It’s been nicknamed the “edifice complex.”

I’m generalizing, but in many communities, it’s common for donors to be more interested in funding buildings than day-to-day operations. Why? Operations are ephemeral. You can’t carve your name on them. They don’t offer the same professional or social cachet. A performance is here today, gone tomorrow. But a building is something concrete you can show your friends, your colleagues, your rivals, for decades to come. You can even throw corporate parties inside them! Plus, halls shape their built environment: an environment that is often, in the case of orchestras, in densely populated downtown locations. It’s like a miniature stadium. Those are attractive benefits to people who wield political or financial power.

Needless to say, over the years, many orchestras have had labor disputes coinciding with big capital campaigns for hall renovations. It’s a trope at this point.

To the symphony’s credit, it has stated publicly that “our priority is to stabilize the organization financially and support our artistic output.” But they’re also simultaneously ramping up for a capital campaign, so I mean… It’s clearly on the horizon.

There are ways that an organization might attempt to mitigate the more damaging side effects of a community’s tendency toward edifice complexes, and guide folks to supporting day-to-day operations. One might be hiring a beloved music director who is famous for innovative thinking and engaging, cutting-edge programs that are exciting to sponsor. Well, whoops.

By the way, the San Francisco Classical Voice article I mentioned earlier included an ominous detail…

Questions remain, especially about where the orchestra would perform during the construction — estimated at three years by the architect and two years by the SF Symphony administration. Davies would mostly be unavailable for rehearsals and performances, and the orchestra’s old home, the War Memorial Opera House, is fully booked by San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others…

Unlike the New York Philharmonic’s three-year-long $550 million renovation of David Geffen Hall, during which the orchestra played in Carnegie Hall and elsewhere, the SF Symphony would have no such options locally.

In 2012, the Minnesota Orchestra left Orchestra Hall during a renovation. It was supposed to play concerts at the Minneapolis Convention Center auditorium a few blocks away. As it turned out, the Orchestra Hall renovations ended up being finished before the sixteen-month-long musician lockout was. Now, I’m not saying that history will repeat itself in the future. But I’m also not saying that it won’t.

Is the departure of Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen final?

Despite a petition from the Symphony musicians asking the board to find a way to keep Salonen, yes.

But Spivey said that while Salonen’s role as music director is ending, his relationship with the Symphony will continue. 

“He will most certainly be a regular guest that comes back and works with the orchestra,” confirmed Spivey.

Is Salonen in the room with us right now? I know the phrase “is the [X] in the room with us right now?” is a meme, but I’m literally asking you, is he in the room with you right now? If not, why not? Where is he? Why are you talking about his future when he’s not there? He is alive. Esa-Pekka Salonen is alive!

Has the search for the next music director begun?

No, but the search will commence soon. 

Folks, the classical music world plans its calendar out years in advance. The search should have started the day Salonen announced his departure. Heck, renowned orchestra CEO Deborah Borda has been quoted as saying that searches for future music directors are perpetually ongoing. Honestly, I wouldn’t even be mad if they lied about this one while awaiting the formation of an official search committee, just so it seems like they care. I genuinely can’t tell if they want a music director right now — I’m guessing they don’t until they finish their negotiations with the musicians — but at least pretend for the press, you know? If they’re bargaining in good faith, there’s no time to waste here. Why are they pretending there is?

“We will want to ensure that the person that we find not only is passionate about what they do on the stage, but they’re passionate about building this organization,” said Spivey, noting that the new music director will also need to be “a rallying force for continuing to build our audiences and that philanthropic support.”

Geeslin emphasized the collaborative arts environment in San Francisco, noting that the new director will join a vibrant leadership community.

Great. Conductors love…joining vibrant leadership communities and building philanthropic support. It’s the reason the best of them get into music. They love hobnobbing at gala balls with fellow leaders. Especially in tents.

Seriously, what are you doing to attract this hypothetical new director? Do you think this interview is helping? Who is this interview even for?

How does the Symphony plan to restore public trust?

Yes! Yes! This is a great question! Yes!

Spivey is optimistic. “There are a lot of positive drivers that will enable us to not only overcome those financial challenges but actually land in a very successful place down the road,” he said. “There’s an opportunity to build a philanthropic pipeline in the long term and ultimately, the opportunity to connect deeply to become a really vital part of the arts and culture scene and what makes San Francisco special.”

My follow-up: can you be more generic?

*

The interview ends there.

So. Hey. San Francisco Chronicle.

Look. I don’t blame you. Your dearly beloved arts critic just retired. You had to bring in people who don’t know the field, who are experts in other things, who probably have ten thousand other plates spinning and are existentially nervous about keeping their jobs, because everyone who writes for a living nowadays is existentially nervous about keeping their jobs, and trust me, I feel you. I am counting down the days until Chat GPT starts spitting out mean long-winded gif-encrusted labor dispute essays. But how were they supposed to know what to ask? Without training or experience, how were they supposed to parse the 990s? Or the financial statements of an organization that is spending, raising, and investing hundreds of millions of dollars a year? Again, there are literally hundreds of pages of numbers to go through, and they’re dense. I don’t blame them for not having the bandwidth to dig in here.

No, right now I feel like the bigger problem is how weird the orchestra leadership is acting.

Don’t get me wrong. Running an orchestra is hard. Running an orchestra well is incredibly difficult. It gets especially impossible when there are money troubles.

But the thing that grinds my gears here is, the stuff I’m talking about isn’t about money. This is about governance. This is about communication. This is about respect for a great artist. Respect for a great artist is free. Good optics are free. Answering questions intelligently, with empathy? Free.

I’m going to make a prediction. In the eyes of the public, this leadership team’s original sin won’t have anything to do with the First Problem. It won’t have anything to do with money. Instead, it’s all going to trace back to the decision to push Salonen overboard without a lifejacket and then act like it was no big deal, like they wanted to ghost him all along. So before they can solve whatever financial issues are or aren’t lurking in their 990s, the San Francisco Symphony has to address their Second Problem first. And they have to do it once and for all.

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