After months of negotiations, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra Player’s Association has finally ratified a contract, but the musicians still might not be ready to play a happy tune.
“The musicians don’t know how they will reconcile with management after months of heavy-handed negotiations tactics,” the Player’s Association said in a press release.
The Player’s Association stated that the core musicians will each be taking a $4,682 pay cut, for a total salary of $16,269.67 per core musician. The press release stated that the NMSO administration makes “well over $100,000 per year.”
David Sherry, spokesman for the NMSO management, said in an e-mail that the combined salary and benefits for core musicians make their contracts worth more than $20,000 a year.
Sherry said the musicians’ press release exaggerated the salary of the NMSO administration, but he did not say how much NMSO administrators make in a year.
“The claim about administration salary is completely bogus,” he said. “The average salary is absolutely not over $100,000 per year.”
Denise Turner, the NMSO Player’s Association spokeswoman, said the musicians ratified this contract Monday after rejecting several others. The accepted contract provides for creating of an Audience Association to oversee the orchestra budget, she said.
“The musicians, since the last time they voted on a contract for management, were able to successfully negotiate terms of accountability — also oversight, as well as transparency mechanisms — where progress reports will be released to the public,” she said.
Turner said the NMSO Player’s Association created the Audience Association through independent fundraising. She said the Audience Association raised enough funding to pay musicians to play in the New Mexico Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker.”
“We’ve done concerts to help raise funds to start the Audience Association, and the Audience Association actually decided to donate funds to underwrite the orchestra for the ballet,” she said. “So, they’re actually contributing to New Mexico Ballet to ensure that we had a full orchestra.”
Turner said the musicians will also play a holiday concert on Dec. 12 as part of their Pops series. She said some NMSO musicians will perform with the ballet at Popejoy Hall this weekend.
“The musicians did, on their own, create a partnership with New Mexico Ballet,” Turner said. “The musicians haven’t received a paycheck in 15 weeks, so this work has really assisted the musicians.”
Thirteen members of the NMSO also teach in the UNM music department.
Terry Davis, a public relations specialist for Popejoy Hall, said the orchestra has six concerts listed as rescheduled, but no dates have been set.
Davis said the ratification of the NMSO contract is an important cultural event for UNM.
“It’s good to have the symphony back and working. They are a cultural icon,” he said. “They’ve been performing on the University campus for probably 40 years, almost since Popejoy began,” he said. “So there’s been a lot of history with the symphony here.
We’re very glad that they worked things out between the musicians and the organization to be able to perform some more.”
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Turner said the musicians are glad to go back to work providing music to Albuquerque.
“Everybody is really hoping for a successful turnout for ‘The Nutcracker’ ballet,” she said. “They’re bringing in dancers from major dance companies. It’s quite a production.”
*“The Nutcracker”
Saturday, 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, 2:00 p.m.
“A Very Merry Pops”
Dec. 12, 2:00 and 8:00 p.m.
Popejoy Hall
*
