“The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and its musicians ratified a new one-year contract on Monday, ending a bitter labor dispute that will return the performers to the stage to open the season this weekend,” write Mary Carole McCauley and Christina Tkacik in Monday’s (9/23) Baltimore Sun. “Management and the performers held a joint, 3 p.m. news conference at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall…. The annual base salary of the musicians will be $81,438…. The base pay is guaranteed by a restricted fund of about $1.6 million that has been pledged by local philanthropists on the condition that it be used for performers’ salaries. The one-year contract calls for a 38-week performing season and a two-week summer season instead of the 52 weeks stipulated under previous contracts…. The contract also provides for creation of a new board committee—the Vision Committee—that will have a broad mandate in planning the BSO’s future. Among other issues, the Vision Committee will have a say in determining season length…. The contract resolves a crisis that erupted over Memorial Day when the BSO abruptly canceled the season of summer concerts [after learning] that that the BSO was unlikely to receive $1.6 million in emergency funding from the state legislature.”
Posted September 24, 2019
In photo: The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in 2016, the orchestra’s centennial year. Photo by Jordan August
