Orchestra beats Chapter 11 filing

With musicians accepting a pay cut and emergency donors pitching in, the Louisville Orchestra has stepped back from the brink of bankruptcy and avoided becoming the nation’s ninth symphonic ensemble to suspend operations in the last 12 months.

The orchestra’s board voted unanimously June 9 to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the face of a $1.5-million debt. But negotiations with the musicians, overseen by a federal mediator, produced a deal Friday that orchestra spokeswoman Jennifer Maxwell said not only spares the organization from bankruptcy but also guarantees it can play its next three seasons without programming cutbacks.

“We’re relieved. We’re back on track,” she said.

Savings from salary cuts for musicians, conductors and office staff will total $665,000. Instead of the 8.1% raise they were due over the next two years, the musicians accepted a 3.4% cut from their current annual minimum salary of $33,600. They also agreed to leave three vacancies unfilled, reducing the group’s full-time contingent from 71 players to 68. Management kicked in a 4% raise in the deal’s third year, restoring pay to slightly more than current levels in 2005-06.

Several donors -- including local businesses, the Louisville, Ky., metro government and a local nonprofit arts fund-raising coalition -- had promised gifts exceeding $1.5 million if the orchestra could manage to stay out of bankruptcy and cobble together a plan to balance its budget of about $6 million a year. The musicians’ concessions make it possible for the donations to flow and for the orchestra, which had reneged on payrolls for more than a month, to go on without missing a performance.