The nine-week Atlanta Symphony Orchestra lockout spawned its fair share of conspiracy theories about orchestra and Woodruff Arts Center management among supporters of the musicians, often spurred by frequent accusation-filled statements released by the ASO Players’ Association.
So it wasn't surprising that there was speculation on arts blogs about the timing of the Dec. 5 announcement that the arts center was receiving a $38 million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.
Arts Center president and CEO Virginia Hepner was quick to assert that the timing of the grant — including $25 million in endowment matching funds and $13 million for capital improvements — had everything to do with the nonprofit taking care of business.
Throughout the lockout, she and other Woodruff officials said that foundation leaders had pushed the arts center had to create a “sustainable” business model for the ASO after it finished a dozen consecutive years with deficits.
Asked on the day the $38 million gift was announced if the Woodruff Foundation was among those who told the arts center — the parent group over the orchestra, Alliance Theatre, High Museum of Art and Arts for Learning — that its access to grants would suffer without major corrections, Hepner said, “Without question.
“Very good foundations try to make sure that their recipients have a good business plan to support the artistic plan,” Hepner said. “It’s not only the Woodruff Foundation but many other important foundations have said repeatedly that we will continue to support the arts center and their particular passion at the arts center, but you have to make sure you manage (it). And that’s true of all the divisions.”
Hepner said she and Woodruff Foundation officials began discussing what became the largest gift in the Midtown arts center’s 46-year history shortly after she took her leadership role.
“I’ve been here about about two and a half years and we started talking about it two and a half years ago,” Hepner said, “and I would say seriously in the past year, at least – all of us needing to be clear on what had to happen.”
The four-year collective bargaining agreement finally hammered out between Woodruff and ASO management and the Players' Association on Nov. 8 calls for the orchestra, which was reduced from 88 full-time musicians in its 2012 contract to 77 this season, to grow to 88 by the new pact's end.
The $25 million endowment matching funds, which the ASO will share equally with the Alliance and High, strongly positions the orchestra to add back the 11 player positions required in the contract if the Woodruff Foundation grant can be matched. The cost to endow a musician’s chair in perpetuity is $2 million to $2.5 million.
However, all that shouldn’t obscure the fact that the biggest winner in the grant news is the Alliance Theatre, which will receive most of the $13 million earmarked for capital improvements in addition to its share of the endowment funds. The capital improvement funds, which do not require a match, will be the lead gift in a planned $30 million complete renovation of Alliance Theatre performance, education and public spaces that have not been significantly upgraded since the Memorial Arts Center (now Memorial Arts Building) opened in 1968.
In the renovation projected for a late 2018 completion, the auditorium will be modified to make the space more intimate, bringing patrons closer to the stage. Sound and lighting equipment will be modernized and acoustics greatly improved. Multipurpose rehearsal and support spaces will be added.
“We’ll be able to have those artist-support facilities that take the right care of the caliber of artists that we have the luxury to work with,” Alliance artistic director Susan V. Booth said.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Spano’s ‘courage’ recognized
Musical America selected ASO music director Robert Spano as one of 30 end-of-the-year "Profiles in Courage" honorees. The magazine cited several reasons for Spano's selection, notable among them that the maestro didn't stand quietly on the sidelines during the nine-week lockout that delayed the start of the ASO's 70th anniversary season.
“When the ASO parent, Woodruff Arts Center, locked the Atlanta musicians out earlier this fall, Spano boldly took on his bosses and argued in defense of the musicians, both in public statements and private meetings with WAC officials,” wrote the magazine’s editor, former Atlantan Susan Elliott.
Given that musical leaders typically remain neutral during labor disputes, some Atlantans and industry experts wondered about Spano’s standing with the ASO after the collective bargaining agreement was reached. That was especially so after arts center governing board chairman Douglas Hertz was sharply critical of the maestro in an AJC interview.
In fact, Spano is in the first year of a five-year deal, and relations appear to be warming now that the maestro has returned to the podium. In an encouraging sign, ASO management bought a full-page Musical America ad congratulating Spano on his award.
They weren't the only one saying bravo. On the Facebook page of the new advocacy group Save Our Symphony Atlanta, the maestro's mom, Dede Spano, posted about her son's honor: "A proud mother just has to say Amen to that."
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