Symphony Strikes an Upbeat Mood as New Season Nears : Fiscal, Artistic Conservatism Hold Sway in Wake of Last Year’s Bitter Labor Strife

A year ago, the San Diego Symphony musicians were picketing Symphony Hall, protesting the season’s cancellation and their lockout by a management team that refused to let them work, except on its terms.

The players stubbornly refused to give in. There followed a season of bitterness and disillusionment.

Mistrust was so embedded that the two sides spoke barely a word to each other, carrying on negotiations in sessions where even civility was worn to the thinnest veneer.

All that, apparently, is now history, the bitterness dissipated in the flush of opening night expectation. The San Diego Symphony, which played nary a note last year, is alive again.

Returned to Reception

Last week, the players returned to a reception held in their honor by the symphony auxiliary in the hall’s formally appointed President’s Room. Executive Director Wesley O. Brustad welcomed the musicians back. After an hour of talking--and joking--the players were ushered backstage to view recent improvements made for them: a new lounge; warmup rooms; where before there had been just one, five dressing rooms, all freshly painted and carpeted; new restrooms and showers, and 97 new lockers.

The musicians gratefully applauded the efforts of facilities operations manager Lynda Sterns, who had directed the $25,000 in improvements, and did the interior decorating herself. Sterns, visibly moved, came close to tears.

It is a different mood at Symphony Hall, where the season officially begins Friday. The vibrations are good, yet everyone admits the work is just beginning.

Among symphony officials, the attitude is one of fiscal and artistic conservatism. Their approach to the future is positive but guarded, hopeful but reserved--cautiously optimistic.

Go-Go Attitude Gone

Gone is the go-go attitude of the last dozen years, during which the orchestra expanded wildly from regional to major status. The expansion resulted in a $5.5-million debt and a bitter labor dispute that degenerated into last season’s debacle. Amid the strife, the San Diego Symphony Assn. disbanded the orchestra, and its highly paid and highly regarded music director, David Atherton, resigned.

“There are so many problems facing us, but they’re not insurmountable,” Brustad said in an interview last week. Hired a year ago to turn around the symphony’s debt-ridden operations, Brustad thinks the orchestra can finally put its problems behind it.

Nevertheless, plenty of hurdles remain, including eliminating the capital debt, regaining public credibility, building a larger audience, improving labor relations, ending a constant turnover of top management figures and re-establishing the musical quality that is almost sure to be lost because of key vacancies in the orchestra.

Technically, the orchestra’s first performance is a free concert at noon Thursday) at the Bank of America Plaza downtown. But Friday evening’s concert will be the first at Symphony Hall since the inaugural season in the hall concluded in May, 1986.

Threat of Bankruptcy

Three months into that season, which began in November, 1985, management threatened to file for bankruptcy if the community did not bail out the beleaguered orchestra, which had been carrying an almost $2-million deficit. In 10 days, the community responded, matching symphony board members’ contributions for a total of $2.48 million.

But the symphony still ended the season with an $800,000 deficit because of faulty income projections.

What should have been the second season in the new hall was torpedoed last year when the musicians and management could not agree on a new contract. The symphony leadership refused to propose a pact that would result in more deficit spending. The low-paid musicians refused to give up the hard-won salary increases achieved in the previous agreement.

Even Mayor Maureen O’Connor got involved in the dispute by offering the services of former UC San Diego Chancellor William McGill as mediator.

Agreement Finally Reached

An agreement was finally reached in late May, once $1.25 million was raised to cover the symphony’s deficit, including $700,000 in season ticket vouchers from the canceled season. Close to $1 million was donated by members of the board of directors.

The No. 1 problem now facing the symphony, Brustad believes, is how to restore the community’s interest and credibility, which hit rock bottom during the labor bickering.

“That takes time,” he said. “I think we’ve made marvelous gains in both ticket buyers and donors, certainly far beyond what we had projected at this point.”

On the eve of the new season, Brustad noted that the symphony has:

Raised $2.02 million over the last 12 months, wiping out the orchestra’s operating deficit and providing start-up funds for the current season.

Raised in cash or “hard pledges” just over half of the $2 million in contributed income budgeted for this year. That includes more than $700,000 received over the last five weeks in response to more than 100 personal visits by members of the board of directors to potential donors.

Sold more than half of the minimum $1.25 million in ticket sales budgeted for the entire winter season.

Reduced its total $5.5-million debt to $3.4 million.

“We’ve started this fiscal year Oct. 1 with no carry-forward bills,” Brustad said. “We are determined that . . . by Sept. 30, whatever expenses we incur during these 12 months (will be) covered by the income we generate these 12 months.”

To do so, Brustad slashed costs across the board to reach a budget he felt he could live with. This $5.7-million budget is $2 million less than the expenses incurred the last season the orchestra played.

On the income side, Brustad has projected revenues no higher than the dollars actually taken in during the 1985-86 season.

“We are done with the days of high-flying rollers here,” he said.

Instead of planning to sell out every concert, Brustad based his budget on selling 60% of the tickets, a figure “based on historical fact, on (the paid attendance) we’ve been able to attract over the past five years.”

The same applies to fund raising. The $2 million budgeted this year is less than the $2.61 million raised in 1985-86, which does not include the $2.48 million raised during the crisis campaign of February and March, 1986.

Artistically, the symphony will have to survive without a music director for perhaps three years, Brustad estimated. To aid him in artistic matters, he has brought in two professionals, Fabio Mechetti and Edmundo Diaz del Campo.

Mechetti, an Exxon Arts Endowment conductor of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., is the symphony’s resident conductor. As such he is “the resident artistic force,” Brustad said.

Diaz del Campo, former assistant conductor of the Pacific Symphony of Orange County, will work primarily with artists and repertory, Brustad said.

Fewer Weeks of Concerts

The symphony’s first classical season since 1985 offers fewer weeks of concerts and less adventurous programming than the orchestra played under Atherton. The $5.7-million budget could pay for only a 32-week contract with the musicians instead of the 45-week contract of 1985-86.

Atherton liked to program occasional world premieres and rarely heard 20th-Century pieces along with the standard repertoire. The current season, while including works by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Schuller, boasts several chestnuts by composers such as Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms.

“I tried to bring in a certain number of the ‘name-recognition artists,’ ” Brustad said. “People want to see them.” Among the widely known artists are pianist Misha Dichter, violinists Ida Kavafian and Ruggiero Ricci, and guitarist Angel Romero.

He matched them with “people not so well known, but outstanding musicians” such as pianist Jon Kimura Parker, who will play the Grieg Piano Concerto for this week’s series of concerts.

Included in the 18 weeks of the winter season will be three pops concerts featuring Mitch Miller, Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey.

To help broaden the symphony’s audience base, Brustad has added several new series of concerts designed for young adults, travelers, silent movie buffs and those who do not or cannot go out at night. Three 6:30 p.m. Wednesday “cocktail concerts” have been scheduled for young professionals.

On three Saturday evenings the orchestra will accompany movies such as “Robin Hood” with Douglas Fairbanks and “The Circus” with Charlie Chaplin in the “nickelodeon concerts.”

There is a new series of “coffee concerts” at 11 a.m. on three Wednesdays, and the orchestra will play for a series of travel movies on three Sundays at 2 p.m.

Moved to Fill Opening

Brustad has moved quickly to fill an administrative staff that dropped to just seven members a few months ago. He has hired “around 18 staffers” and plans to operate the orchestra with 23 full-time and two part-time staffers.

He is not concerned about the high staff turnover that has hurt the symphony in recent years. “Basically, that’s been the executive director’s chair that’s been a revolving door,” he said. Brustad does not plan on leaving soon. “My plan is getting this orchestra back on its feet.”

The emphasis on building financial credibility has begun to change the symphony’s image in the community.

“They seem to be more aggressive in marketing the symphony than they were in the past,” said Paul Downey, spokesman for Mayor O’Connor. Although rebuffed when the musicians refused to accept binding arbitration in January with her handpicked mediator, O’Connor later sent a congratulatory letter to the musicians praising their “courage and determination” for producing their own summer pops series last summer.

“We’re kind of a step back from it now, but . . . there’s every reason for optimism,” Downey said. “The mayor (who was out of town last week on business) shares that view.”

New community leaders, including several business chief executives and two bank presidents, have joined the symphony’s board of directors “with a positive attitude,” said Michael Madigan, a senior vice president with Pardee Construction Co., who is a new board member.

“Work has to be done on rebuilding the confidence of the community,” Madigan said. “If the symphony failed before, it wasn’t because of making artistic mistakes. The financing wasn’t good.

“It wasn’t really until the team of (Herbert) Solomon and Brustad took over that we really gained a feeling that in the long term things will work out.”

Solomon, who was elected president of the symphony’s board in 1986, made some key changes in the way the orchestra is run. He insisted on ending the symphony’s history of deficit spending. Along with bringing Brustad aboard as chief executive, Solomon ended the practice of board members’ interfering with the administrative staff.

“The board is concentrating on its primary responsibilities of setting policy, seeing that the funds are raised as required to meet the budget objectives, and ensuring that the proper fiscal controls are in place,” Solomon said.

“The professional management has the responsibility for implementing the board policy and conducting the everyday business affairs of the symphony.”

Along with developing a reputation for fiscal responsibility, Brustad must close the gap with labor that widened last year when contract talks deadlocked after the musicians refused to take a pay cut. Ultimately, they agreed to a salary cut in June by agreeing to a shorter season even though the weekly minimum pay scale increased.

“There’s been tremendous healing,” Brustad said. “There’s a whole change in philosophy. The players are what we are about. I mean, it’s like having a football team, right? You’re not going to beat anybody unless you have a good team out there that feels good about themselves.”

Gregory Berton, who chaired the musicians’ bargaining committee, said there may be problems, but of a musical nature.

“If (the music) is going to suffer for any reason . . . there are two things that concern me,” Berton said. “One is getting first-class personnel to fill out positions that are vacant--attracting good players to San Diego to complement what we’ve already got.

“The other is that we’re without a full-time music director. We’ll have a different conductor virtually every week, which does not contribute to developing the orchestra’s own style--its cohesive ensemble playing. The orchestra will have to be very much on its toes with a different conductor each week.

“A lot of how an orchestra sounds has to do with the orchestra’s attitude. The orchestra is very much looking forward to making music.”

Monday in Calendar: the new and returning musicians and what--and how--they’ll play.