“Texas Ballet Theater has no plans to dance without live orchestral music next weekend,” writes Mark Lowry in Friday’s (9/9) Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas). “For its season-opening performances Sept. 16-18, the dance company had been planning to perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.… It had been highly touted as the orchestra’s first time to play in the Winspear Opera House in Dallas and Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s first time to conduct such a collaboration. Then the orchestra musicians went on strike Thursday. Management canceled this weekend’s symphonic concerts at Bass Hall. So Texas Ballet Theater worked out a unique contingency plan: The company will still use the striking musicians to accompany the ballet performances, but the musicians will perform under the name Symphony Musicians of Fort Worth. Harth-Bedoya will conduct as planned. Under the arrangement, the dance company acts as a contractor hiring the musicians and will pay them at the rate they make under their current contract with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.… If the strike and wage disputes are resolved before the Sept. 16 performance … the contract will revert to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association, which will provide the musicians under its banner.”
Posted September 12, 2016
