“After a three-month strike, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra will be making music again,” writes Andrea Ahles in Wednesday’s (12/7) Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, TX). “The musicians voted on Wednesday to approve a new labor agreement with orchestra management that includes a pay freeze for the first two years and modest pay raises in the last two years of the four-year contract. The orchestra’s first concert will take place Dec. 31 at Bass Hall, conducted by music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya.” The remainder of the season will be performed as previously scheduled. “Management was able to offer pay raises after an anonymous donor came forward with $700,000 to cover the increased cost of the musicians’ salaries…. The labor agreement … will run through July 31, 2020.… Musicians will … receive a weekly pay increase of 2 percent in the third year [of the contract] and 2.5 percent in the fourth year…. The musicians’ [previous] contract expired in July 2015…. The musicians, who took a 13.5 percent pay cut in their contract signed in 2010, wanted raises in their new agreement. However, symphony management said it could not afford to increase musicians’ salaries as the organization has operated with annual deficits for several years.”
Posted December 8, 2016
Pictured: Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducts the Fort Worth Symphony at Bass Hall. Photo by Max Faulkner / Star-Telegram
