MUSICIANS UNITED DESPITE NO SALARY

Two months have passed since the San Diego Symphony issued its last paychecks to musicians, and, “It’s starting to hurt,” one player said.

That doesn’t mean the musicians are about to accept management’s proposed 11% pay cut. The musicians say solidarity has never been higher, and they will hold out for more money.

Talks with the highest-paid and one of the lowest-paid players in the symphony revealed how they are coping.

Jeffrey Levenson, 34, a contracted substitute cellist, was hired only for the 26-week winter season and earned $12,272 last year, plus fees for three summer pops concerts. Unlike musicians who work under a three-year contract, Levenson is one of several substitutes hired annually to fill vacancies.

“I’ve been picking up a few (jobs),” Levenson said. “Mostly it’s feast or famine,” and a recent “feast” is giving way to famine. Levenson has had a job with the San Diego Opera Orchestra as acting principal cello, but now that “Tosca” and “Norma” are over, there are no opera assignments until January.

Work has been so spotty that Levenson says he is “looking into something steady for a while,” such as a job in sales. He has found that “almost anything you can get pays as well as what (the symphony) offered.”

Levenson and his wife, pianist Karen Follingstad, moved to San Diego two years ago from Midland, Tex., when she took a job at San Diego State University. Her income helps. In Texas, Levenson was a member of the Thouvenel String Quartet.

Thinking there would be a symphony season, Levenson bought a new cello in September for $15,000. With no season, the $360-a-month payments tax the family income. “I was trying to upgrade,” he said. “My timing was off.”

Still, he sides with the musicians’ position against the symphony in the stalled labor talks. “They’re saying they can raise the quality of the orchestra without raising the minimum” paid to musicians, he said. “You just can’t work for that money. It’s an insult.”

Levenson said the musicians’ union strike fund and unemployment pay him “only $600 a month,” less than his former symphony wages.

(The musicians are not on strike. They have been locked out by the symphony. The union fund from which they are paid is generically known as the strike fund.)

The difference in income is much greater for concertmaster Andres Cardenes. The highest-paid musician in the orchestra, Cardenes “on principle” is not collecting unemployment. “When you’re one of the tops in your profession, I don’t feel like standing in line. I’d be embarrassed” to receive unemployment payments, he said. He does receive the strike fund money, “but I’ve paid into that anyway. It’s a return on my investment.”

At 29, Cardenes has debts far greater than one might guess from his salary, which symphony observers estimate to be in the upper five-figure range. “If everybody knew what kind of debts I have, they would probably faint,” Cardenes said.

Without revealing the figures, Cardenes said he owes more--much more--on his violin than on the house he bought last year.

“I’m not married so I can’t depend on a spouse for any other income,” Cardenes said. “Maybe I’m in a better situation than any married person anyway. I’ve got a lot of opportunities to earn money outside of this, which I’ve already been hustling like mad to take care of.”

Refreshingly self-confident, Cardenes has no doubt about his ability to find work elsewhere if a labor agreement is not reached soon in San Diego. He just returned from New York City, where he played a series of chamber music concerts, filling in for ailing Eliot Chapo, the former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic.

Little of the bitterness from the symphony labor dispute has rubbed off on Cardenes.

“In terms of actual money . . . in some ways I do have the most to lose,” he said. “But if you’ve noticed, I’m the one that’s complained the least. I’m not a person who gets taken over by hysteria or high emotions. I’m level-headed about everything.

“It’s a very delicate, delicate thing. Everyone’s emotions are running high, especially from people who don’t have any income coming from any other source.”

Cardenes is embarrassed that “it’s gotten to be sort of dirty, chemical warfare” with players questioning music director David Atherton’s professional abilities. He would like to see the situation settled in a more gentlemanly manner.

The prospect of losing “a lot of valuable time in the progression of this orchestra . . is even 10 times more important to me” than the money, he said.

When Cardenes came to San Diego a year ago, he found that the strings were “very weak.” He has changed that. “I was really looking to work with them more. I mean, really, we could have a first-rate string section. I . . . think it could compete with any section in the country, but it’s going to take a little bit of time.”

Also gnawing at Cardenes is the effort he spent persuading some top musicians to play as acting principals in the symphony this season. Among them were Dutch cellist Godfried Hoogeveen, whom Cardenes considers “the second or third best cellist in the world”; violinist Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio, the 1986 bronze medalist in the Tchaikovsky competition, and Lynne Ramsey, former principal viola for the Pittsburgh Symphony. They amount to “close to 35 years’ experience of playing principal in a major symphony. That’s something money can’t buy . . . a huge asset to the symphony,” he said. Now those musicians must reschedule.

“I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore,” Cardenes said. “I really don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to hold out,” he added, acknowledging he is close to financial disaster.

Even if an agreement is reached and a proposed March mini-season is scheduled, he said that it would still be three or four months before the musicians are paid.

Cardenes, at least, has three job offers but has told the organizations to wait a couple weeks so he can see if anything is likely to happen in San Diego.

Levenson lacks that option, and, in addition to the cello payments, he and his wife are expecting their first baby in May.

“Let’s face it, we’re eating it; It’s starting to hurt,” he said. “But there aren’t any cracks in the orchestra. It’s probably a tighter feeling than there has been in years. We think we’re being reasonable. We’ve been reasonable for years.”