Problems in Phoenix
This bulletin just in from Musical America, involving West Seneca East grad Michael Christie, above, who is now in his fourth year as music director of the Phoenix Symphony.
Efforts by Phoenix Symphony Music Director Michael Christie, 34, to “upgrade” the orchestra have resulted in a barrage of legal challenges. Eight players have filed age-discrimination complaints with the EEOC, including principal cellist Richard Bock, 62, who was fired in January, and principal violist Peter Rosato. Further, the local office of the National Labor Relations Board “has issued a formal complaint against the Phoenix Symphony's leadership, including Christie, alleging violations of the federal National Labor Relations Act…. The complaint charges that the symphony has been discriminating against its employees, punishing them, demoting them, and sometimes firing them because they have come to each others' defense, spoken out, and/or have made complaints against the symphony to the EEOC.”
Here is a blog by the frequently quoted orchestra expert Drew McManus about the situation.It must be a challenge to be a music director these days. You do not have the freedom the old-time maestros had, that is for sure. The late BPO violinist Harry Taub used to talk about how the great conductor George Szell, arriving at the Cleveland Orchestra, lost no time in "cleaning house." That was when Taub was hired -- not even out of college. I got the impression Szell let a lot of musicians go, and that no one sued.
But times are different now. Remember how in 2002, when the Montreal Symphony's musicians' union ousted Charles Dutoit? A conductor's job is complicated these days. You have to play nice.
Christie is also the music director of the Brooklyn Symphony. In January, as Artsbeat has noted, the conductor was the subject of a glowing cover story in Symphony, the magazine of the League of American Orchestras.
Let's wish him the best in ironing out his problems in Phoenix.
--Mary Kunz Goldman
