SYMPHONY STATISTICS INTRODUCE SOUR NOTE

A war of statistics has been a side show of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra-musicians contract negotiations. A week ago the musicians released a thick sheaf of tables and figures compiled by the American Symphony Orchestra League and the American Federation of Musicians that bolster their claim that they are the low men on the symphony’s totem pole when it comes to expenses.

The symphony has responded with a counterattack, deriding the statistics distributed by the musicians as inaccuracies and half-truths. Symphony President Herbert Solomon says the musicians deliberately chose tables compiled relative to income rather than expenses. “For the year the statistics were taken, we had the sixth-largest deficit of all those orchestras,” Solomon said. “Because of the deficit, it distorts those percentages.”

Solomon also says the symphony players’ average salary is higher than the league figures. “We had 70 staff musicians actually on contract,” 19 fewer than the 89 the contract calls for, Solomon said. That averages $636 a week rather than the $514 listed in the table, he said.

“But whether our percentages are higher or lower isn’t the real question, because each orchestra has factors that influence them,” Solomon said.

What irks the musicians more than having the lowest minimum weekly salary of any major orchestra--which isn’t disputed--is that, as a percentage of the budget, the aggregate of their salaries is also the lowest. In the top 30 orchestras in the country, musicians are paid an average of 45.6% of the budget. In San Diego they were paid 37.5% of the budget.

Both sides agree that that is the one area that the symphony management must explain satisfactorily or change before any settlement is possible.

FILM SERIES: “Ventana Latina” (Latin Window), San Diego State University’s excellent free film series of Latin American films, opens Sept. 16 (Independence Day in Mexico) with Luis Bunuel’s 1953 film “Illusion Travels by Streetcar.” Movies that will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays in Room 130, Hepner Hall, include Werner Herzog’s “Ballad of the Little Soldier” (Sept. 30), “Ganga Zumba” (Oct. 14), “My Aunt Nora” (Oct. 28), “They Don’t Wear Black Tie” (Nov. 11), and “Rebellion in Patagonia” (Dec. 2).

PORT ART: The San Diego Unified Port District is busily commissioning artworks once more, after some nasty business in 1985. Last year a proposed $350,000 sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly drew an unprecedented degree of controversy.

On Sept. 30 a jury will select three finalists for a Port District project of similar scale--one year to the day after Kelly bailed out of the commission that had become too hot for him to handle.

Another Port District competition underlines a change in attitude by some local artists toward the district’s Public Arts Advisory Committee. Last week’s announcement of a $75,000 competition open to artists from Long Beach to Ensenada and east to the California border attracted 75 submissions in the first few days. The deadline is Nov. 3 for a proposal of one or two artworks to be placed on Harbor Island.

The difference, Public Arts Advisory Committee Chairman Gerald Hirshberg said, is that “we’re listening to a lot of public opinion at the meetings.” Jennifer Spencer, president of the Combined Organizations for the Visual Arts, agreed, saying the committee seems more willing to work with local artists and art groups.

Another new wrinkle is the presence of distinguished out-of-town jurors on the Port District’s selection committees, who Hirshberg said “add fresh input and a broader exposure for the artists involved.”

Guest jurors Martin Friedman, director of Minneapolis’ Walker Art Institute, and Richard Koshalek, director of Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, will join the six members of the committee Sept. 30 to choose three finalists for the Spanish Landing site.

Ultimately one artist will be chosen in February to provide the site’s artwork, budgeted at $300,000.

Guests Howard N. Fox, curator of contemporary art for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Henry Hopkins, director of the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, will join the committee in selecting five finalists for the Harbor Island site. That winner will also be announced in February.

Hirshberg said seven sites around the bay are under consideration by his committee. As happy as he is about the shift in community attitude, he maintains a practical view. “It would be naive of us to think that when we put up a work of art that everybody will like it.”

ARTBEATS: The San Diego Opera has received a $375,000 gift. The donor is the estate of Maxwell Gluck. His widow, Muriel, gave the first major donation in the symphony’s crisis campaign this spring. . . .

Where have we heard this plot before? A Vietnam veteran struggles to overcome the trauma of battle and the difficulty of re-adjusting to civilian life. The key difference in “The Willow Building,” coming soon to The Theatre in Old Town, is that the protagonist is black. After a run in Las Vegas, the L. Leain Thompson play will open Sept. 18 in Old Town. . . . Actor Jim Belushi will present two-hour “seminars” at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Oct. 4 at San Diego State University’s Back Door. Actors and others can attend one of the on-the-job sessions featuring the actor doing his shtick for $25.