Last night, ABC7 News’s Lyanne Melendez ran a report about the ongoing governance imbroglio facing the San Francisco Symphony. You can watch and read a transcript here.
It was a treat to get a video interview with SFS CEO Matthew Spivey and board chair Priscilla Geeslin. More of this, please! It is beyond fascinating not only to listen to what they say, but to watch how they say it.
A few things jumped out that I wanted to point out, because it feels like things are really starting to accelerate here. Without a change in course, it’s pretty clear that the S.S. SFS is headed straight toward an iceberg.
When it comes to the SFS meltdown, the media seems to smell metaphorical blood in the bay.
I continue to be struck by the fact that the current leadership of the San Francisco Symphony really has no defenders in any press: local, national, or international. They are getting hammered by all quarters, by all media. And if they were hoping to win over ABC7, that clearly didn’t go well.
The ABC report introduces Spivey and Geeslin like so:
[Conductor Esa-Pekka] Salonen didn’t actually begin his tenure until 2020 and we all know what that infamous year meant for the world, COVID-19.
All concerts were canceled through June 2021.
By then, the two top people directly responsible for hiring Salonen had left. In their place, a new leadership was assembled, Matthew Spivey and Priscilla Geeslin.
Melendez starts off the interview with a brutal opening volley:
“You will perhaps be remembered as the folks who let, quote, ‘a bucket-list, brilliant conductor, go.’ So a simple question to both of you, what the hell happened?“
Geeslin takes a deep (irritated?) breath. Spivey is the one who answers. He uses the same talking points that they’ve been pushing since the summer, before this whole affair really started snowballing down Mount Doom. If those talking points weren’t equal to the moment then (and they weren’t), they absolutely aren’t equal to the moment now. And the interesting thing is… Spivey sort of seems to know it? Throughout the entire interview he has the uncertain, uncomfortable air of a panicked high school student giving his first presentation.
He also doesn’t really answer the “what the hell?” question, either:
“You know, I think this is a moment of change for every arts organization, certainly in San Francisco but really across the country. We are seeing as arts organizations emerge coming out of the pandemic they are thinking differently about who they are and how they connect and relate to the world around them.”
I will grant Spivey that this is a moment of change. (Although I also think there’s a solid argument to be made that every moment is a moment of change for every arts organization.) And I agree that arts organizations are “thinking differently about who they are” and their relationships to their communities post-pandemic.
But.
Do you know what’s not happening in the industry? Generationally talented music directors departing in dramatic fashion, and a serious audience rebellion brewing over issues of governance. Maybe that’s a you problem, my friend.
Reality check: Major American orchestras have not responded to the pandemic by instituting long-term cuts in musician compensation.
I think it’s important to remember that major orchestras “thinking differently about who they are” does not mean that they are also embracing austerity and systematic stakeholder alienation.
Here is how the SFS’s peer orchestras have responded to the post-pandemic world when it comes to musician compensation.
- In June 2022, the New York Philharmonic ratified a contract that took steps to restore cuts made during the early days of the pandemic. According to the Times, the “decision to restore pay is a milestone in the Philharmonic’s recovery, and it offered some hope that the worst of the pandemic, which cost the orchestra more than $27 million in anticipated ticket revenue, had passed.” 1
- In August 2023, the Boston Symphony Orchestra agreed to a three-year musician contract. The press release about it is coy as to exact figures, but it underlines that the contract includes “a ‘catch-up’ increase for the musicians following a three-year pandemic pause in their wages under the existing contract approved in 2020.” It also provides for greater scheduling flexibility for musicians. 2
- In September 2023, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra agreed to a three-year musician contract that included 3% annual salary increase and increased benefits. 3
- In October 2023, the Cleveland Orchestra agreed to a three-year musician contract that included “annual increases in minimum weekly compensation of 4 percent, 3 percent, and 3 percent, respectively, over three years, in addition to a one-time, $5,000 agreement ratification bonus each.” 4
- In October 2023, the Philadelphia Orchestra agreed to a three-year contract that included “increases in the agreement [of] 6% in the first year, 4.5% in the second and 4.5% in the third.” 5
- And circling back to the first bullet point, today, on 19 September 2024, the New York Philharmonic (very inconveniently for the San Francisco Symphony) announced a new contract, under which musicians will see a raise of 30% over the next three years. 6
(Note: I’m leaving the Los Angeles Philharmonic out of this because their pay packages include compensation associated with housing and it’s harder to compare contracts using an apples-to-apples approach.)
Spivey is right about one thing: American orchestras have been re-thinking their identity and their missions post-pandemic.
But the facts are clear: this re-thinking doesn’t include imposing concessionary contracts.
To be such an outlier in a relatively stable negotiation cycle like this one, as the SFS will be, is a leading indicator of major institutional instability. You never want to be in this position in the best of times, but you especially don’t want to be in it when you’re searching for a world-class music director, after you very publicly dumped your last one.
It goes without saying, if the SFS genuinely has to make these cuts to survive, it owes the public a detailed explanation as to exactly why. How has the SFS so dramatically underperformed its peers?
SFS leadership clearly views executing a music director’s vision as a budgetary “extra.”
Geeslin then takes a swing at the PR pinata. She describes an orchestra’s budget like this, in the context of Salonen’s expensive artistic vision:
“‘You sit around a table as a family and you say we have this much money, this is what we can spend this year. Do we take a vacation, do we not take a vacation, do we go out to dinner more, do we do less. It’s saying that this is the money we have to spend and this is how we’re going to utilize it to make sure that by the end of the year we still have a reasonable amount of money to move forward,’ stated Priscilla Geeslin, the Board Chair of the symphony.”
First off, if the stakeholders at the SFS are family sitting around a table, then there aren’t enough seats at that table. The musicians have been trying to sit down at the table for months to start contract negotiations. 7 But for a long time, management refused to set the table: i.e., they put off negotiating, presumably to ratchet up the pressure for as long as possible before the contract expiration date. Meanwhile, dissatisfied audience members are raising hell by holding up signs in Finnish, and have been threatened with expulsion from the dining room entirely. 8
Second off, it’s striking that Geeslin regards the expense of executing a music director’s vision as being in the same category as a “vacation” or “eating out less.”
Because…no???
If we absolutely must use a tortured “family budgeting while gathered round the kitchen table” metaphor, here’s a more accurate description of what’s going on:
- One parent divorced the other beloved parent and doesn’t want him at the table, and refuses to go to therapy about it. The beloved parent has gone mute in public. Everyone has to pretend this is normal.
- The kids are being asked to choose between extras like vacations and eating out.
- Meanwhile, the proposed budget the parent is passing around is calling for only paying for part of the electric bill and mortgage.
- There is no credible plan to increase household income. The best the children hear is platitudes about how hopefully the next spouse will help to increase the size of the household income pipeline over the next few years.
- There is a search committee that has just been formed to find a new spouse. Everyone has the sinking feeling that no one in their right mind will want to marry into this family.
- By the way, the spurned spouse was supposed to help increase the household income back when he joined the family — then, just like what happened to Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show in 2009, was given no time to actually do that.
- The parent is talking about spending $100 million renovating the house. 9
- The entire time this circus is going on, there’s an inebriated sibling pounding on the window bellowing “Family therapy! Family therapy!” (That’s the patrons and patron advocates.)
Audience advocates dropping in on the SFS’s meeting at the family table
I grudgingly admit that some orchestras can be like families sometimes, but…let’s also be real. In the end, workplaces aren’t families. Hell, when money is at stake, most families stop being families.
In any case, I’d hope that serious people can recognize that workplaces are not families when the people on top are deciding how an $80 million dollar annual budget is going to be spent, and also have the power to lock out other members of their family.
We need a better metaphor.
“The best people in life are free” – Taylor Swift in “New Romantics” and also Matthew Spivey, apparently
Spivey then returns to yet another stale, months-old talking point:
“There is no question in my mind that the San Francisco Symphony is one of the most extraordinary ensembles in the world, period. And I think what defines that is not budget size. Some of the most impactful moments that we’ve made don’t necessarily cost much at all,” insisted Spivey.
What a mind-blowing paradigm shift. So you don’t actually get what you pay for? There’s no truth to that?
If budget size is so disconnected from outcomes, why is the San Francisco Symphony spending money on a CEO? Maybe artificial intelligence could perform this job for less, with better outcomes. How about we ChatGPT our way out of this thing? Some of the most impactful leadership suggestions don’t necessarily cost much at all.
Also, what exactly are these impactful moments that are happening for not “necessarily…much at all”? Share your tips, Mr. Spivey!
“And another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad” – dril (2014); also, SFS leadership (2024)
They both maintain there is no animosity between them and Salonen.
Oh, I’m sure. I imagine y’all are just super close. I bet you have picturesque picnics on Alamo Square every Saturday morning, and then you bicycle across the Golden Gate hand-in-hand, then you all go home and watch The Room eating popcorn giggling and pointing out all the local landmarks where you’ve spent time together. I’m sure.
Hilariously, the next paragraph is:
Salonen did not want to be interviewed for this story nor did he allow us to film any rehearsals or performances that include him.
And okay, so, yes, this is obviously funny because everyone living in reality can tell that the “no animosity” thing is a lie, or at the very least a desperately uncomfortable corporatization of human emotion.
But also. Take a step back. That lie says something, no? If they’re able to lie about something as obvious as this, what’s keeping them from lying about other things that aren’t so obvious?
The SFS leadership truly believes the problem is external, not internal
“We are committed to working with our musicians and I trust them, I really do. Our challenge is not an internal one, our challenge is an external one,” added Spivey.
Well, no. Reference the list of recently signed orchestra contracts above. I think it’s pretty clear the best case scenario here is that you have both internal and external challenges.
The symphony believes one way to attract audiences is to showcase what few cities have, a one-of-a-kind performing arts scene, which also includes the ballet, the opera, the SF Jazz Center, and the Conservatory.
“This is an incredible concentration of great art institutions and west of the Mississippi you don’t have a concentration like this,” explained Geeslin.
As soon as I read this, I saw a Drudge-Report-style siren gif flashing in my mind’s eye. This quote could easily be used as ammunition for the argument that that Geeslin, Spivey, and the board are chasing a pipe dream to merge the SFS with the San Francisco Opera.
It sounds nuts, but the two were once part of the same organization. And Patricia Geeslin’s husband, financier Keith Geeslin, is a former president of the San Francisco Opera.
Folks have been raising the possibility of this being a potential end game in places like the San Francisco Standard and on the site of SFS Patron Alliance, an audience advocate organization.
And look, I’m not taking sides about what’s real or what’s not regarding this rumor. But. Rightly or wrongly, the idea that the merger is a goal is in the public discourse, and this quote is not helping assuage folks’ fears.
To be clear, Spivey has gone on the record with the San Francisco Standard saying he “claims ignorance about these claims.” 10 But to skirt so close to a conspiracy theory by downplaying the symphony’s importance in the context of the city’s wider cultural identity is certainly…a choice.
At the very least, why do these people not understand optics 101?
The SFS leadership wants support without accountability
Melendez closes her interview with the question:
“What do you want viewers to get out of this interview?”
Geeslin answers:
I want them to come to the hall, I want them to come and support us. I want them to come and enjoy the music and our orchestra and to celebrate the San Francisco Symphony.
What’s left unspoken is that audience members who are upset about the organization’s direction have been profiled in the Chronicle. A woman who held up a sign with naughty Finnish words on it about the board was even threatened with being barred from the hall altogether. 11
So let’s be honest: Geeslin doesn’t want all viewers to come. She wants the viewers who agree with her to come to the hall. She wants viewers who support her governance choices to come to the hall. She wants viewers who are happy to see Salonen leave to come to the hall. (Of course the big problem there is that Salonen doesn’t seem to have a lot of anti-stans in San Francisco…)
If she thought otherwise, she’d engage in better faith with the people who disagree with her path forward. She’d express more remorse and humility for letting Salonen slip away. She’d have an actual plan, not just concepts of one.
Again and again, over the course of months, with plenty of opportunities to alter course or to moderate, both she and Spivey have demonstrated they don’t care about customers who disagree with their vision (such as it is).
After the 16-month-long Minnesota Orchestra lockout, that organization started making progress after 1) people at the top left, and 2) their replacements were game to do things like hold town hall meetings to listen to stakeholders’ concerns. That turnaround timing wasn’t coincidence.
I don’t know what else to say about these people. They aren’t serious. They aren’t participating in this desperately important conversation in good faith. They never have. They’ve decided on a destination, exact route TBD, and they are determined to stick with their plan, damn the torpedos. Meanwhile, their local media is skeptical of them, even aggressive toward them. Their patrons are pushing back. Their music director is embarking on a season-long cold war against them. Most urgently, their musicians are caught in an impossible situation, with their livings and careers potentially in the balance. It’s excruciating.
And that’s not even wading into the matter of the hardball that Spivey, Geeslin, and their associates are playing with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. According to AGMA, the SFS management is seeking to cut the chorus’s budget by 80%. 12 It is impossible to see this as anything but a shot across the bow directed not only to chorus members, but to the orchestra’s musicians and the pro-Salonen customer base generally. (As of 19 September, the chorus has voted to authorize a strike if necessary, meaning that opening night is in jeopardy. 13 )
Do you want to know who one of the most important local constituencies was when it came to rebuilding the shattered Minnesota Orchestra? Members of the Minnesota Chorale. Don’t mess with chorus people!
In the end, these people are not living in the real world with the rest of us. I don’t know why. Maybe because they don’t have to. They are metaphorically adrift in the San Francisco Bay, their only flotation device a set of arm floaties. Of course the inner workings of every major arts organization is different, and I don’t know who – if anyone – has the power to nudge the S.S. SFS in a new direction, one that might restore at least a modicum of seriousness, maturity, and credibility. But if that person or that group of people is waiting for a moment of crisis to step in, the time has come. The crisis is now.
Footnotes
