Outgoing Director’s Letter Blasts Pacific Board, Executive

Any likelihood that 2 years of upheaval at the Pacific Symphony would come to a quiet close ended Thursday, when outgoing music director Keith Clark released a letter blasting the orchestra’s board and “the non-musical executive director,” meaning Louis G. Spisto.

Spisto declined to respond, but board president Stewart C. Woodard said he found it “extremely sad that Keith has chosen once again to display the very kind of action that was one of the major reasons why we did not extend his contract.”

In a a four-page letter to Woodard, dated May 3, Clark complained that preparations for his final concerts--played earlier this week and featuring Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations”--had been severely compromised by the excused absence from rehearsals of at least a dozen leading orchestra members. These musicians were performing with the Pasadena Symphony, the Joffrey Ballet in Los Angeles and for commercial recording dates, he said.

“The orchestra which will play Beethoven’s Ninth . . . is not the Pacific Symphony Orchestra which I built,” Clark wrote. “This orchestra has been reduced to an irregular group of players, many playing together for the first time, some randomly selected because they did not happen to be playing” elsewhere.

“These concerts, indeed all concerts, should present to the public an ensemble of musicians which has been selected based upon their abilities to play together and which has been assembled with adequate time for careful preparation. I had expected that my final concert would represent whatever we have accomplished during my tenure. This is clearly not the case,” Clark’s letter said.

Clark traced the difficulties to the 3-year contract signed last October with members of the American Federation of Musicians, which greatly liberalized absence policy, both for rehearsals and performances.

“I am in a total disagreement with Keith on this matter,” Woodard said. “Traditionally, many members of the orchestra play for the Joffrey and in Pasadena. In terms of program, we have always had this experience. . . . That is the agreement we’ve always had with the orchestra members. Keith is disappointed (because) it happened to come at his last performance.”

Clark referred to the group that played recently at a concert in Oceanside as a “pick-up” group and charged that shifting groups attending rehearsals meant that, in essence, he was working with “two different orchestras. . . . Spotty attendance typifies an attitude which has prevailed throughout this year.”

But Woodard said Clark’s complaints about the rehearsals were baseless. “His history of not being prepared continues to haunt him,” he said.

Both Clark and Woodard observed that most of the orchestra’s principal players were on hand for concerts by guest conductors, although they differed over why this was the case.

Clark said in his letter that Pacific Symphony officials made special efforts to ensure participation for guest conductors but did not do the same for him because of “personal disdain for me, so eloquently expressed in the press by our executive director and some board members.”

Woodard said he was not going to respond to that charge because it was “not worthy of a response” and was “absolutely disrespectful to the orchestra.” However, he suggested that orchestra members were voting with their feet when they failed to participate in Clark’s concerts.

As further indication of the rift between Clark and his musicians, orchestra members refused to return the applause that Clark offered them at the conclusion of Wednesday night’s performance. (See concert review on Page 1.)

At the time the contract was signed with the union, Clark said the agreement gave “the non-musical side of the administration significantly more authority over what kind of music is going to be made than the (Pacific Symphony) association originally envisioned.” The contract also gave tenure to most orchestra members, along with much greater decision-making responsibility.

In his letter, Clark also urged the association “to restore to my successor the musical authority required to continue the growth of this orchestra which has been denied me during the past year.”

Clark charged that the music director’s artistic prerogatives have been challenged.

“It is unconscionable that the music director’s directions to the personnel manager regarding musicians have been repeatedly contradicted by the non-musical executive director. . . . I am insulted when major artistic decisions, program changes and cancellations have been made without my knowledge; when important recording activity is discontinued; when the association’s aesthetic table tilts from the Verdi ‘Requiem’ to Johnny Mathis.”

Woodard said he felt that Clark’s release of the letter was a combination of desperation and sour grapes.

“I think Keith is beginning to sense that life goes on beyond Keith,” he said. “He’s taking the low road in order to build support for his new orchestra” in Orange County.

Since the announcement of Clark’s departure, he said, “we have raised more money this year than we ever have raised. We have the highest rate of returning subscriptions. We feel excited.”

In an unrelated development, W. Andrew Powell, the orchestra’s director of marketing and public relations, will be leaving his post May 31, a source at the organization confirmed. Powell declined to comment on his status. Since Spisto arrived 2 years ago, 12 of 14 full-time staff members have resigned or been fired.