Ronda Respess has played violin with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for 43 years. For the past 37 years, she also has served as a judge, coach and mentor with the ASO’s offshoot, the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, planting her feet firmly in both camps.
“This means the world to me,” Respess said this week as she prepared to judge violin auditions for the ASYO at Sprayberry High School in Marietta. “It is my second love to playing. But it is very difficult to come and do this and realize that the kids can come and play and we can’t. It just breaks your heart.”
Respess and the rest of the professional musicians who make up the ASO are locked in a bitter battle with management over their next contract. Their last contract expired last month, and the two sides still seem far apart as the organization deals with a projected $20 million debt. The musicians are locked out, and negotiations are on hold.
But then the children came. With this week’s auditions to build this season’s youth orchestra, the two sides have reached an uneasy truce. The ASO’s management will still run and administer the youth orchestra, which is entering its 38th season. The musicians will still pick the orchestra and continue to coach and mentor the youngsters.
Charlotte Caldwell, whose daughter has played viola for the orchestra for two years, said her family had doubts that the season would go on because of the labor dispute.
“I was nervous for my daughter,” Caldwell said. “This is her love and passion, so it is great to see these musicians coming together. They are parents themselves and take care of our children as if they were their own. My daughter would be on the floor crying if this were stopped.”
On Thursday, the music facility at Sprayberry — because of the lockout, Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center is off-limits — was buzzing. Young musicians were running around with their instruments or camped out in the rehearsal room waiting for their audition number to be called. Nervous parents paced the halls or sat patiently in a waiting room.
“For most of them, this is the biggest thing they will do in their lives,” Respess said. “The auditions are what they work for all summer and all year. It would be a real pity for them to suffer because of us.”
Stanley Romanstein, president and CEO of the ASO, said for the students, nothing should seem amiss and that “this should be a year just like any other year.”
“Music education is incredibly important to the ASO and the musicians,” said Romanstein, adding that the Talent Development Program is still in place as well. “I see this as positive. It says to me, that at the heart of our conversations, we are all interested in making music, getting back on the stage and educating our children. We are hopeful that we will find a way to come up with a solution.”
With less than a month before the professional season is set to start, the two sides are more than $1 million apart in their contract negotiations, which centers on salary and the length of the season. As part of the last contract, the players were paid as full-time employees for 52 weeks. Among other things, the ASO wants to cut that full-time commitment to 42 weeks, which the union is balking on.
“One thing has nothing to do with the other,” said Christina Smith, who plays flute in the orchestra and has been one of the union’s key negotiators. “These are programs that are very important to us and held dear to our hearts. No matter what is happening to our lockout, the kids should not suffer.”
Smith said more than a dozen ASO musicians help pick the students, who are judged through a rigorous blind audition process. Every student, even past members, has to audition annually. The work that the volunteer musicians do on behalf of the youth orchestra is not part of their contracts. Romanstein said they are paid “above and beyond their normal contracts.”
Throughout the season — which begins Nov. 11 with the Overture Concert in Symphony Hall — the professionals continue to coach the students.
“Most of us are incredibly dedicated teachers, and it is satisfying to work with these incredibly talented kids,” Smith said. “And they get to learn the orchestral repertoire from a professional musician. That is a very valuable gift.”
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