How the Orchestra Fell After False Crescendo

From the high hopes of the celebration of a plush new home a year ago to the cancellation of its winter concerts Tuesday, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and its supporters have moved along a scale of notes that, if set to music, would rival the most dissonant of contemporary pieces.

Less than three months after the refurbished Symphony Hall was christened in November, 1985, symphony officials announced that the orchestra was on the brink of bankruptcy and needed a $2-million infusion to survive.

The community responded, and the symphony got its $2 million and more. Optimism returned. Some symphony supporters even talked of establishing an endowment to guarantee the orchestra thousands of dollars of operating funds yearly.

Unlike rebounds from previous financial crises in 1981 and 1982, this one, symphony officials promised, was for real. With years of accumulated debt repaid, the symphony would now be able to move forward, free of interest payments, to establish itself as a force on the American music scene.

But as spring turned to summer, the reality of a continuing operating deficit began to set in. Symphony officials, it turned out, had overestimated routine fund-raising efforts for the year. By the end of the season, the deficit had begun to build into a new debt of more than $850,000.

The best way to cut the deficit, and the debt, management decided, was to cut the length of the 45-week season. In effect, that would mean a pay cut for the musicians. The musicians, complaining that they had been exploited through years of mismanagement, refused. Instead they picketed, and they went on strike, forcing the symphony to cancel portions of the season twice before Tuesday, when management conceded that the winter season must be scrapped.

The following is a chronology of events from the hall’s opening to the cancellation of the concert season:

Nov. 2, 1985: Capping a fund-raising drive that netted $4.7 million, the orchestra christens the new 2,250-seat Symphony Hall, the 68,000-square-foot, three-story downtown building formerly known as the Fox Theatre.

A dinner dance, reception and fund-raising concert feature entertainers Hal Linden, Diahann Carrol, Joel Grey, Toni Tennille and others. With plans to transform an entire city block into Symphony Towers, a ritzy $250-million project rising up and around the newly refurbished Symphony Hall, years of debt and deficits are forgotten in the excitement of opening day.

“It’s the past that keeps haunting the San Diego Symphony,” one observer notes. “The current keeps getting better and better.”

Feb. 24, 1986: Shocking the San Diego arts community, the symphony divulges that it has been operating near the edge of bankruptcy for two months and could miss its next payroll. Symphony President M.B. (Det) Merryman says prospects for another season are bleak if the board of directors is unable to raise $2 million in contributions to eliminate a staggering deficit.

“If unchecked, the deficit could ultimately bury the symphony,” Merryman says. “I do not believe we can sustain the orchestra at the current level.”

Feb. 27: The symphony announces it will file for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code if it does not raise the $2 million it needs by March 10. At the same time, orchestra officials begin a crash fund-raising drive featuring telethons, radiothons, and appeals to average citizens and millionaires alike.

“It’s way past the Band-Aid stage,” Merryman says. “We need a total solution.”

March 4: The symphony association is declared in default of its construction loan for the renovation of Symphony Hall. A consortium of banks, led by Bank of America, freezes about $700,000 remaining in a $4.5- million loan fund that the symphony used to renovate the downtown hall.

March 5: With the desperate fund-raising drive lagging, several community and business leaders say they are reluctant to bail out the symphony because of doubts over whether the orchestra has been or will be soundly managed.

“There’s a problem of credibility and confidence in the symphony,” Chamber of Commerce President Lee Grissom says. “A lot of business people are unwilling to contribute at this time because they have questions about how the money will be used.”

March 8: After thousands of small contributions trickle in to bring the symphony near its goal, two donors give a combined $350,000 to push the orchestra over the $2-million mark.

“You’ve shown us you want an international symphony orchestra,” Musical Director David Atherton tells the audience as he steps to the stage for the orchestra’s 8 p.m. performance. “That is what you’re going to have.”

March 9: Now that the symphony has staved off financial crisis, Executive Director Richard Bass says, “I’ll be doing virtually everything differently. The first 18 months I’ve been here I’ve just been putting out fires. I haven’t been actually able to manage the orchestra.” Bass was able to manage the orchestra for only four more months. He resigned in July.

March 21: Despite the $2.48 million in contributions from the community, the orchestra estimates that it will end the year with an $820,000 deficit.

Bass says the new projections are due to a more conservative analysis of the orchestra’s fund-raising and marketing abilities.

June 7: The Symphony Assn. Auxiliary Council holds an evening-long fete, “Renaissance,” drawing more than 300 patrons to the U.S. Grant Hotel. Joyce Oliver, the auxiliary’s president, says the symphony ball is a celebration of “one of the most historic, dramatic, excitingly eventful years in our recent past.”

July 22: Wesley O. Brustad, executive director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, is chosen as the new executive director for the San Diego Symphony. Before working for a year with the Los Angeles orchestra, Brustad, 42, served five years as executive director and general manager of the Spokane (Wash.) Symphony Orchestra.

Aug. 31: The three-year contract between the symphony and its musicians expires. Negotiations for a new contract move slowly, as musicians resist a proposal to cut the season from 45 weeks to 38.

Sept. 15: New symphony President Herbert Solomon announces that Brustad has cut 24% of the symphony’s administrative staff. In a separate news conference, musicians’ representative Greg Berton contends that management was using “every legal means to harass the musicians,” including withholding pay due under the contract that expired Aug. 31.

Oct. 13: Unable to reach agreement with the musicians, symphony management cancels the first three weeks of the 1986-87 season 10 days before the first performance.

Oct. 29: Raising for the first time the possibility that the entire concert season might be canceled, symphony officials divulge that management overestimated its 1985-1986 fund-raising projections by $2 million, leaving the symphony with an $877,000 debt. Executive Director Brustad unveils a “10-year-plan” for fiscal “stabilization, recovery and growth.”

Oct. 31: Symphony President Solomon announces that the entire winter season will be canceled unless a new agreement between musicians and the board is “substantially reached” by Nov. 10. Musicians’ representative Berton responds that management is trying “to fool the public and cover up its own plan to defraud the community of its orchestra and the musicians of their livelihood.”

Nov. 3: Symphony officials cancel the second three weeks of the winter season as contract talks with musicians remain stalled.

Nov. 11: The symphony cancels its entire 1986-1987 winter season.