Haglund's Heel

Pay the orchestra, dammit!NYCB hits sour notes with elected officials

New York City Ballet has always depended on taxpayers to fund it. Most recently as the result of the COVID crisis, NYCB received a federal grant of $10 million and also will share in the $20 million gift that Lincoln Center received. And still, the company which sits atop a cash pile of $200+ million in its endowment refuses to pay the orchestra what it promised to pay during the pandemic. Well, now the representatives of the taxpayers have spoken.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer
NYS Senator Brian Benjamin --aka Lt. Governor Benjamin
NYS Assemblymember Dick Gottfried
NYS Senator Brad Hoylman
NYS Senator Robert Jackson
NYS Assemblymember Latoya Joyner
NYC Councilmember Mark Levine
NYS Assemblymember Daniel O'Donnell
NYC Councilmember Keith Powers
NYC Councilmember Carlina Rivera
NYC Councilmember Helen Rosenthal
NYS Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal
NYS Senator Julia Salazar
NYS Senator José Serrano
NYC Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer

These New York State and New York City elected officials have sent a letter to NYCB which says:

As elected officials who care about arts workers, we're saddened and angered to learn that the musicians of the New York City Ballet Orchestra have been denied any pay for over a year.

Across the country, almost every other orchestra found a way to sustain their musicians during the pandemic. It's unacceptable that New York City Ballet decided not to support its own artists, who suffered through the worst economic conditions they've ever experienced.

We're aware that an arbitrator recently allowed you to proceed with this unethical course of action, but that certainly doesn't justify doing so. As a flagship nonprofit arts institution that receives many advantages from NYC taxpayers, we expect you to act better than this. We urge you not to use legal loopholes to hurt these hardworking ballet musicians.

You can undoubtedly afford to pay your musicians: your endowment is worth $198 million. You also won a $10 million federal Shuttered Venue Operators Grant from taxpayer-funded pandemic aid and you will likely share in the $20 million gift to Lincoln Center that was recently reported in the New York Times. Despite this, you still refuse to negotiate fairly with the orchestra.

We urge you to settle quickly on a fair contract with the NYCB orchestra and their union that takes into account payment for the last season. We're committed to ensuring that the pandemic is not misused as a way to destroy the lives of our cherished arts workers, who make New York City the arts capital of the world.

The letter was also signed and presumably drafted by AFM Local 802 President Adam Krauthamer and NYC Central Labor Council President Vincent Alvarez.

Just because NYCB can afford to pay big corporate lawyers to screw the artists doesn't mean that it's good policy to do so. When they screw the artists, they screw the audience, too. Surely, NYCB is shaking in its boots over whether it will have to pay everyone else if it pays the orchestra. Yes, dammit, they should pay everyone who they promised to pay.

Pay the orchestra, dammit!

 

Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony in Damrosch Park

The Met Opera Orchestra is celebrating its new union contract with Met management by giving two free performances of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" in Damrosch Park on September 4th and 5th at 8pm. Denyce Graves and Ying Fang will sing as will the Met Chorus.

Tickets will be made available by Today Tix lottery and via a standby line. Masks will be enforced. Vaccination proof/negative COVID test required. No messing around here.

The Met should pipe this over every inch of Lincoln Center. People should be able to sit by the Milstein reflecting pool, on the silly artificial turf on the Josie Robertson Plaza, out on W 62nd Street, or on the overhead walkway by Juilliard and experience this resurrection.

This is going to be one great time. Everyone seems more than ready. Let's hope the weather cooperates since rain = cancellation; no rain dates.

 

 

NYCB Orchestra dispute not over

by a long shot.

From Slipped Disc:

Two weeks ago the company told its musicians they would not receive pay for the past 18 months.

Now it is informing them of disciplinary action if they do not return to work.

To the NYCB Orchestra Committee:

    It has come to our attention that you are instructing orchestra members not to submit attendance sheets for the Fall Season.  That action violates the no-strike provision of our CBA, and the Ballet will seek damages against the union and union representatives unless the Committee reverses that instruction.  In addition, orchestra members who comply with that instruction will be disciplined.  We are forwarding this email to each member of the orchestra to ensure that they understand the consequences that will result from complying with the Committee’s instruction.”

–Brooks

Brooks Parsons

Senior Director of Operations

NEW YORK CITY BALLET

$220 million sitting in an endowment.

“What are you waiting for? What are you saving for? Now is all there is,” somebody once said.

We are exactly four weeks from opening night.

Pay the orchestra, dammit!

 

BAAD Superspreader Event

The week of BAAND Superspreader Events opened last night at Damrosch Park. Haglund apparently overlooked the notice that the seating arrangements of prior weeks -- pods of two chairs with three feet between them -- would not be observed. Rather, a couple of thousand chairs made for narrow ballerina butts and backs were crammed next to one another closer than two coats of paint.

Many people did not observe the event's masking requirements including a certain Wall Street Journal dance critic (perhaps he couldn't find a mask that complimented his knickers). All guests in Damrosch Park were required to wear masks. Period.

Maskless COVID Karen plopped down in a nearby reserved seat that had been vacated by a masked gentleman. She proceeded to claim loudly that she didn't need a mask because she was vaccinated and that anyone who was bothered should find another seat. She occasionally coughed while trying to cover her mouth with her hand and then invited her little barefoot daughter who had been running around the aisles to come and sit in her lap. Then she started conducting the music using her fingers as batons and humming along.

So, was she really vaccinated? It doesn't matter if she was vaccinated twice. She was still a public health threat -- by choice. And that's what factored into Haglund's decision to forgo the rest of the week's performances.

Do better Lincoln Center.

 

observations 8/14

Robert Hill has suddenly stepped down from his position as Artistic Director at Orlando Ballet citing a need to spend time recovering from knee surgery and to take some time off from his exhausting job. Yeah, right...

Let's just make sure that Hill, a crony of McKenzie, van Haml, Kent, and any number of former lackluster ABT principals, doesn't end up as ABT's next artistic director. This has been a fear since even before McKenzie announced his retirement -- that McKenzie would try to plant someone in his place who would continue his mediocre trajectory. We sounded the alarm early on. It would be like Trump getting Don, Jr. elected to succeed him.

ABT's board is going to screw this up -- no doubt about it.

NO to Robert Hill. NO to Julie Kent. NO to anyone who admires McKenzie's tenure. ABT will never be able to move forward unless and until it embraces ballet's classical standards--something that was never done by McKenzie.

 

Oh dear, just when things were looking up...

An arbitrator has decided that NYCB does not have to pay its orchestra during the COVID period when there were no performances – even though the company, at around the apex of daily death tolls, renewed a commitment to the orchestra members that they would get 24 weeks of compensation and employment during the 2020-21 year. NYCB made that commitment on March 24, 2020.

NYCB sits atop an endowment cash pile of $220+ million, nearly equal to the Met Opera's endowment of $240+ million. Met Opera's revenues are 3X NYCB's. A cash pile of $220+ million for an organization of NYCB's size is greed defined. NYCB should be spending much of that money on its artistic product and operational expenses -- including paying what it promises to pay to employees. If it promised to pay the orchestra, dammit, pay the orchestra. If it promised to pay everyone else, dammit, pay everyone else. Whoever the genius is who decided to renew short-term obligations to the orchestra at the height of the pandemic is probably being paid 3/4 of a million dollars. Pay up and pay for your mistakes.

Nobody wants the orchestra unhappy come opening night next month. (Let's hope there will still be an opening night.)

✊⛏️🔧

 

Game On, People!

Gotta cheer again for NYCB for their Fall Season Refund Policy of allowing refunds and exchanges up until noon on the day of the performance. However, it still falls short of the Purchase With Assurance/Buy With Confidence pledge that many Broadway theaters are offering which is a full refund or exchange up to two hours before the performance through January 17.

The Met Opera will allow subscription and single ticket exchanges no matter the reason for not attending -- during the entire 2021-22 season. The exchanges may be requested up until the curtain time.

If these flexible exchange/refund policies are a success, maybe they will become permanent.