It has been a great privilege to again serve as ICSOM President. My duties as described in the bylaws include “the supervision of the operation of the organization, subject to the directions of the chairperson, and for such other duties as directed by the Governing Board. As chief operations officer, he/she shall be responsible for the ICSOM-related activities of all member orchestras.” This report will outline some of my activities over the past season.
1. In September I accompanied Chairperson Ridge and DILC (Distinguished ICSOM Legal Counsel-Len) to south Florida to meet with our colleagues of the Florida Symphony Orchestra. They found themselves involved in a truly difficult and contentious round of negotiations. Management proposed cutting several contract musician positions as well as reducing weeks and compensation. If accepted these proposals would have set the FSO back more than twenty years artistically, certainly with significant artistic ramifications.
2. The Governing Board graciously agreed to meet in Kansas City this year for our annual mid-winter meeting due to my family situation. In keeping with what turned out to be an unpredictable but exciting winter weekend, the Kansas City International airport closed for several hours on February 17. This was the airport’s first complete closure in many years and coincided with the expected arrival of the GB. I spent much of the day on the phone and with my laptop in hand re-routing several GB members’ flights in order to get them into Kansas City. All of us met finally late Sunday night with the notable exception of Bruce and Michael, who were additionally delayed in Atlanta. Their re-routed flight eventually arrived in St. Louis, too late to make their connection to Kansas City. They took the seemingly hopeless situation into their own hands and drove the final snowy 250 miles to Kansas City arriving in the wee hours of the morning. After a few short but well deserved hours of sleep we had a very productive meeting on Monday complete with KC barbeque delivered by Kansas City delegate Ho Ahn.
3.In May I attended the final Forum meeting of the Mellon Foundation’s Orchestra Forum Program. Musicians, executive directors and board chairs from the former and current Forum orchestras were joined by former SSD Director Brownell, ROPA President Lehmeier, ICSOM Chairperson Ridge and AFM President Lee. ICSOM vigorously sought from the origin of the Orchestra Forum Program to have AFM, ICSOM and ROPA representation as observers. Invitations were granted mid-way through the ten year program.
4.In early June, Chairperson Ridge and I traveled to Chicago to attend a meeting of the Collaborative Data Project, (CDP.) We met with officials from the League of American Orchestras, SSD, and ROPA. This was the first such meeting in over a year and my first since the genesis for this project was initially discussed by the GB in 2005 following a meeting at the 2004 ICSOM Conference with the leadership of the League of American Orchestras. The Pennsylvania Data Project has been engaged by the League as part of their two million dollar funding initiative to revamp the Orchestra Statistical Report OSR.) A pilot data project is slated to begin shortly. At our June meeting Bruce and I raised the question of musician access to the information collected and compiled through this project. We repeated our concern that open access to the information collected be made available to musicians. ICSOM’s further participation in the CDP will be contingent on this ability to have open access.
5. The Conductor Evaluation Program was administered by ICSOM Treasurer Michael Moore. I am grateful to Michael for taking this on again this year. The CEP provides a valuable and yet under utilized opportunity to evaluate music directors and other conductors. The statistical analyses afforded through the data’s unique format have been used by musicians and managers alike for several decades to give the musicians’ voice a significant role in the selection and retention of conductors.
6. 2007-08 marked my sixth year on the ICSOM Media Committee. Chairperson Ridge, Secretary Ross, Member-at-Large Payne, our newest MAL, Matt Comerford of the Chicago Lyric Opera and I served from the Governing Board along with Paul Frankenfeld, Roger Ruggeri, Peter Rofe, Fiona Simon and ICSOM Media Committee Chair William Foster.
The ICSOM Media Committee met several times throughout the year beginning with a media summit in Washington D.C. on November 12. Negotiations for a successor Audio-Visual Agreement began the following week in New York.
I made arrangements for the ICSOM Media Committee to meet on January 14 at the Hilton O’Hare in Chicago. I was unable to attend as my wife’s projected due date was the preceding day. To help keep us busy during the subsequent days leading up to my son Robert’s birthday January 19 I broke my ankle while running, just as the Media Committee gathered in Chicago.
The ICSOM Media Committee, AFM officials, staff and other musicians met several times more over the next few months in New York and Chicago in an effort to bring the managers to the table for what developed into integrated media agreement negotiations. In late June we met again. These talks were ultimately successful and official negotiations are scheduled to begin in the fall.
7. ICSOM continued its support of the Sphinx Organization, which held its annual Competition in February. Sphinx focuses on building diversity in classical music and arts education. ICSOM sponsorships help to underwrite the finalist scholarship awards to the Sphinx Competition senior level winners.
8. ICSOM President Emeritus David Angus and I again served as the ICSOM Trustees of the AFM Symphony and Opera Strike Fund. The lockout and, as of this writing, lack of good faith bargaining by the Board and Management in Columbus have everyone concerned. Strike Fund benefits for our Columbus colleagues were recently approved. During our deliberations the Trustees recognized issues with the Strike Fund manual that will be researched and more fully discussed in the fall. They include a standing policy and past practice of denying benefits during previously negotiated dark weeks or other weeks in which no work has been scheduled by mutual agreement.
Our concerns are twofold:
First, over 60% of the ICSOM orchestras have seasons that are less than 52 weeks and, yet pay annual Strike Fund dues equivalent to the 52 week orchestras. With the current policy, however, benefits would not be equivalent as the ability to collect benefits in consecutive weeks would be restricted by dark weeks. This disparity between the 52 week orchestras and the other 31 ICSOM orchestras paying equivalent dues should be addressed by the Trustees.
Similarly, non-52 week orchestras often spread musicians’ paychecks year around even though their seasons are 40, 42, 44 weeks, etc. Denying Strike Fund benefits during dark weeks further erodes our colleagues’ ability to make ends meet during the critical time of a lockout/strike and undermined the collective solidarity so necessary to prevail.
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This report would be incomplete at best if I did not acknowledge and thank each member of the Governing Board and DILC for their dedication, expertise and warm friendship. Chairperson Bruce Ridge, though, deserves special mention. Bruce continues to work tirelessly on ICSOM’s behalf for our orchestras, the AFM, and the field at large. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine any other human being working so many hours each and every day, logging so many miles on airplanes and spending so much time waiting in airports, and yet with so little sleep! His dedication, wisdom and calm leadership will continue to benefit ICSOM and the AFM for many years to come. I would like to personally thank Bruce for giving so much to ICSOM musicians and our orchestras.
I would like to also recognize Member-at-Large James Nickel who recently stepped down in order to focus on his new position with the National Symphony. James was a model MAL and served his delegates, the GB and ICSOM with great distinction. We will miss him and we look forward to the future when he will again able to serve. We were fortunate to be able to tap one of our delegates, Matthew Comerford. Matt has proven to be a great addition to the GB and ICSOM Media Committee.
Respectfully submitted,
Brian Rood, ICSOM President
July, 2008