Musician, mediator
Unhappy new from the Columbus Symphony. Both Sam and I have touched on this in past posts, and I think we were both silently hoping it would not come to this.
In effect, the Columbus Symphony has cancelled its summer concerts. Operations will cease on June 1 of this year, and it is uncertain (and reportedly unlikely) that the 08-09 season will go forward come September.
What struck me about the New York Times article in the first link was how the Columbus Symphony's music director, Junichi Hirokami, is reported to have reacted; I have excerpted this portion of the article below:
The latest development prompted an angry response from Mr. Hirokami, who used an expletive to describe the board.
“It’s catastrophic,” he said. “Stupid people. I don’t care if they fire me. They have no idea.” He said that if Columbus were to lose its orchestra, “all the people in the world will laugh at this city.”
Like the musicians’ union, Mr. Hirokami said the board had not done enough to raise money. “You have to use your brain — ‘How can we save this orchestra?’ — but they didn’t do that.”
He said he had tried to solicit funds from companies in his native Japan. “But they don’t trust our board,” he added. “That is why they hesitate to support our orchestra.”
It is an interesting conundrum as to what a music director's role becomes in a situation like the Columbus Symphony's. On one hand, I respect that Mr. Hirokami has taken a very definite stand on the issue. On the other, I wonder if those words will come back to haunt him if negotiations continue and, at some point in the not-too-distant future, he needs to re-establish a relationship with a Board he has so publicly insulted.
Conductors tend to be diplomatic, and it's mostly out of the powerful human instinct for survival. Much is asked of conductors by different elements of the organization, and it becomes a delicate balancing act to make sure that all perspectives are given adequate attention. By the nature of our positions, we often do become mediating figures in an organization, able to move between different constituencies (musicians, management, volunteer board) and forge relationships between all. But what about at a crisis point? Are conductors expected to become uber-mediators? Or to make an all-or-nothing alignment with one side of the struggle?
Some would have the music director take a very public stand regardless of whether one is inclined towards mediation or side-taking; when the Jacksonville Symphony was in the midst of their strife, conductor/blogger Ron Spigelman, in this post, outlined this view point:
...time and time again when lockouts or strikes occur, almost every Music Director does a David Copperfield and disappears until it's safe to reappear, or their board will tell them to butt out.
I say in conducting school stop the microscopic analysis of the Fibonacci sequence and start to teach about how to deal with people and situations like this that will arise because; HELLO, they always do!!!!
Forget the outside mediator, you already hired one, he's called the Music Director and right now in Jacksonville he is needed more than ever! Please Fabio, I know you, you are a good guy, a great musician and I am sure you care about the musicians. Don't leave a legacy in Jacksonville, leave a future for the musicians for when you move on. It will be greatest performance of your career!
(Fabio refers to Fabio Mechetti, music director of the Jacksonville Symphony.) While I agree that "dealing with people and situations" is a useful skill for a music director, I wonder about the necessity of becoming a public mediator. Perhaps a figure around which to rally; that's how conductors are used by marketing departments anyway. But is it reasonable to ask conductors to perform professional crisis/dispute intervention?
The Jacksonville Symphony situation has fortunately been resolved, and soon afterwards Mr. Mechetti posted a response to Mr. Spigelman's plea.
Difficult questions, all. But one thing is for certain, as expressed in Mr. Mechetti's response:
"It is easy to be critical (and hypocritical) of a situation from miles away."
Miles away from Columbus, I can only hope that something can be salvaged from a grim situation.
In effect, the Columbus Symphony has cancelled its summer concerts. Operations will cease on June 1 of this year, and it is uncertain (and reportedly unlikely) that the 08-09 season will go forward come September.
What struck me about the New York Times article in the first link was how the Columbus Symphony's music director, Junichi Hirokami, is reported to have reacted; I have excerpted this portion of the article below:
The latest development prompted an angry response from Mr. Hirokami, who used an expletive to describe the board.
“It’s catastrophic,” he said. “Stupid people. I don’t care if they fire me. They have no idea.” He said that if Columbus were to lose its orchestra, “all the people in the world will laugh at this city.”
Like the musicians’ union, Mr. Hirokami said the board had not done enough to raise money. “You have to use your brain — ‘How can we save this orchestra?’ — but they didn’t do that.”
He said he had tried to solicit funds from companies in his native Japan. “But they don’t trust our board,” he added. “That is why they hesitate to support our orchestra.”
It is an interesting conundrum as to what a music director's role becomes in a situation like the Columbus Symphony's. On one hand, I respect that Mr. Hirokami has taken a very definite stand on the issue. On the other, I wonder if those words will come back to haunt him if negotiations continue and, at some point in the not-too-distant future, he needs to re-establish a relationship with a Board he has so publicly insulted.
Conductors tend to be diplomatic, and it's mostly out of the powerful human instinct for survival. Much is asked of conductors by different elements of the organization, and it becomes a delicate balancing act to make sure that all perspectives are given adequate attention. By the nature of our positions, we often do become mediating figures in an organization, able to move between different constituencies (musicians, management, volunteer board) and forge relationships between all. But what about at a crisis point? Are conductors expected to become uber-mediators? Or to make an all-or-nothing alignment with one side of the struggle?
Some would have the music director take a very public stand regardless of whether one is inclined towards mediation or side-taking; when the Jacksonville Symphony was in the midst of their strife, conductor/blogger Ron Spigelman, in this post, outlined this view point:
...time and time again when lockouts or strikes occur, almost every Music Director does a David Copperfield and disappears until it's safe to reappear, or their board will tell them to butt out.
I say in conducting school stop the microscopic analysis of the Fibonacci sequence and start to teach about how to deal with people and situations like this that will arise because; HELLO, they always do!!!!
Forget the outside mediator, you already hired one, he's called the Music Director and right now in Jacksonville he is needed more than ever! Please Fabio, I know you, you are a good guy, a great musician and I am sure you care about the musicians. Don't leave a legacy in Jacksonville, leave a future for the musicians for when you move on. It will be greatest performance of your career!
(Fabio refers to Fabio Mechetti, music director of the Jacksonville Symphony.) While I agree that "dealing with people and situations" is a useful skill for a music director, I wonder about the necessity of becoming a public mediator. Perhaps a figure around which to rally; that's how conductors are used by marketing departments anyway. But is it reasonable to ask conductors to perform professional crisis/dispute intervention?
The Jacksonville Symphony situation has fortunately been resolved, and soon afterwards Mr. Mechetti posted a response to Mr. Spigelman's plea.
Difficult questions, all. But one thing is for certain, as expressed in Mr. Mechetti's response:
"It is easy to be critical (and hypocritical) of a situation from miles away."
Miles away from Columbus, I can only hope that something can be salvaged from a grim situation.
posted by Sarah at
10:02 PM
8 Comments:
Sarah
Great to read you! It's an enormous tragedy what is happening in Columbus. You mentioned that dealing with people and situations is a useful skill. I believe it is a necessary skill but that also the relationship that is the most important is the one between orchestra and audience and that a MD's stand should be based on that. The audience suffers more with the loss of an orchestra than anyone else as the largest party in the relationship. An audience is built over a lifetime, most boards have three year terms so when the smoke clears if a MD's trust with the audience remains intact then recovery will be much more swift. Look what happened in St Louis, it was unfortunate that David Robertson was new when their strike occured, he did not yet have a relationship with the the community and so it had to be built from scratch out of a strike situation no less and they have lost $3M a year since then. By putting himself on the line with his stand Junichi is sending a signal that he values the fate of the CSO more than his own career, some would call that unwise, I think it is something to applaud. He's not between a rock and a hard place, he's in the hard place trying to blast through the rock! To Jacksonville, I told Fabio that I would post his response word for word, and decided to let others comment and not respond myself. However when you brought up the line:
"It is easy to be critical (and hypocritical) of a situation from miles away."
Hypocrisy might suggest that I did the same thing in repsonse to a labor situation. So far none of the three orchestras and two ballet companies I have been music director of has had any kind of labor dispute and as far as the role of mediator goes I practice what I preach. In Springfield everything is worked out with me present and when it comes to raises, conditions etc...I am the one that asks the board on the players behalf (after they agree) and vice versa when it goes the other way. It is always done in the open with everyone present and all the numbers and facts on the table and everyone who wants to comment can. Last season the orchestra on their own threw the board and the staff a party!
Ron Spigelman
PS. BTW I recently worked with Bob Neu in Syracuse and he told me how great things are going for you, congratulations!
Ron:
Thanks for the comment! I don't mean to imply at all that you exhibit any hypocrisy in terms of this issue; rather, it is my caution to all of us musicians (particularly in the blogosphere!) who post opinions and take sides as if we have a true understanding of another organization's situation; no matter how well informed we are, it is impossible to completely understand a state of affairs in which we are not directly involved.
As for Hirokami's published assertions, while I applaud his courage and candor and appreciate what must be tremendous anger and frustration, I maintain that expletives and name-calling have no place in interviews with major national media. One can powerfully assert a point of view and send a strong message without resorting to either; I'd put this skill under the heading of "dealing with people and situations".
Although ideally I agree with there is no room for "expletives", so many people today day use them in their daily vernacular. When they come under duress they just come out-it is much easier to slip up. I wouldn't be so quick to judge.
In my private, "expletive"-filled life, I cuss with impunity; I've been told that I use language that would make a brass player blush. That being said, I'm pretty measured with my words when I talk to the press and particularly when TV or radio is involved. I can't speak for the kind of duress Mr. Hirokami was under (and hope never to be), but I don't think he's a bad person for saying what he did. Maybe he did just slip up, and if he did, it's truly unfortunate.
More to the point is his description of the board as "stupid people". One of the few useful things I've gleaned from the endless succession of "organizational relationship building" seminars I've sat through during the course of my career is to accurately describe the problem: "You made some truly idiotic decisions" is usually more accurate than (and just as powerful a statement as) "You are an idiot". I've always thought media relations should be part of a conductor's training in the 21st century; most of us muddle along by ourselves and figure it out as we go - maybe not the best way to go about it! And perhaps a good topic for a future post.
This comment has been removed by the author.
In my private, "expletive"-filled life, I cuss with impunity; I've been told that I use language that would make a brass player blush.
It's true - she does. In fact, we both live in fear of the day that one of us wanders off script onstage and drops a linguistic bomb of one variety or another...
I'm curious as to why smart, articulate people feel they need to be crude in order to express their feelings.
Sometimes, feelings are crude...doesn't make one a bad person, but merely human, which is all we are anyway!
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