Page 22 - BusinessWest May 29, 2023

Union President Beth Welty said the musicians are relieved to have a new contract but hope to increase the number of performances in coming seasons.
“I was very aware of the talent on stage and a great appreciator, if that’s the correct word, of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra,” Lambert said of his career change last year. “But I also was aware of the fact that it was a very challenging time.”
In fact, even long-time supporters in the community, including corporate sponsors, were growing anxious, Lambert admitted.
“Everyone had been reading the negative stories in the press about the labor issues. People were aware of the global pandemic issues. People were aware of all the challenges facing the SSO.
And we had to rebuild people’s confidence that not only would we perform, but perform on a first-class basis, and then come back with a full season, with real concerts and real energy with our musicians working with us.”
Beth Welty, the union’s president, called the past few years a “demoralizing” time in many ways, but said everyone is feeling grateful now.
“There are a ton of people throughout the organi- zation that want to work together,” she told Business- West. “The musicians want to work with Paul and
the staff and the board, and we are working together. We’ve got to come together and put the past behind us and work for a much better future.”
Lambert agreed. “This has been a very challeng- ing time for the SSO on a variety of fronts. Certainly, the labor issues that have been in place for some years, on top of the global pandemic, which shut every- thing down and badly affected all performing-arts organizations for some time, were very real. And to get ourselves into a new beginning, a fresh start for
all concerned around this labor deal, was critically important.”
Developments of Note
That said, as in many negotiations, no one got exactly what they wanted. For one thing, Welty said the musicians have been clamor- ing for more performances.
“When I joined the orchestra 40 years ago, we probably did three times the number of concerts we do now. For years, they’ve been constantly cutting and cutting; it felt like no number was small enough for them. They wanted to keep cutting, and we felt like we had to take a stand on that.”
She said the musicians were looking for more than 10 shows, the SSO wanted to go as low as five at one point, and they settled on eight — six classical and two pops.
“We’re not happy about that, but we’re looking to build back up
“The idea now is to put ourselves in a safer place to see what we can do together, to see what revenue streams we can create, where we can create new opportunities to play.”
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