PLAYERS END CONCERTS AS TALKS RENEW

SAN DIEGO —  Orchestra members from the San Diego Symphony are back to contemplating the sounds of silence.

After a fizzled winter mini-series that the musicians themselves put on, further concert plans have been put in abeyance, according to Mark Bedell.

“We had concerts tentatively booked through May, but we’ve been asked to get out of the business of putting on concerts,” the symphony trumpeter said. Bedell had helped organize the series that began with the January concert of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Civic Theatre and continued through February at the East County Performing Arts Center.

The musicians are getting out of concert production for two reasons: a renewal of contract negotiations with the symphony association and a feeling of burn-out after the poor response to the El Cajon concerts.

“We learned from (former UC San Diego Chancellor William) McGill that ‘doing our own thing’ with these concerts was jeopardizing further negotiations,” Bedell said. McGill is mediating the current contract negotiations, sparked by a new offer made Feb. 26 by the players to the symphony association.

“We felt there was a public perception that the musicians were trying to start their own orchestra, or that the Philharmonic was more than temporary, which was not the case,” said Gregory Berton, symphony bassist and one of the principal contract negotiators.

“It’s a heavy political scene now, so it’s in everybody’s best interests to keep a low profile,” Bedell said.

Symphony musicians were candid about their disappointment over the East County center concerts, where they learned the harsh lessons of concert financing.

“We didn’t make any money at all at ECPAC, although we each got paid $100 for the Beethoven concert,” Bedell said.

“After the thrill of the Civic Theatre Beethoven concert, the poor audiences at both ECPAC and UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium were a real letdown,” trombonist George Johnston said.

Since the lockout began last fall, orchestra members have presented about 150 programs, from small ensembles in shopping malls to full symphony concerts, according to bassoonist Dennis Michel. “Many of these concerts were freebies or given just for making a donation to the players’ fund,” he said. Keeping the musicians playing before the public, however, produced an unexpected and unwanted result.

“Getting together and playing this way, we realized we were giving an untrue perception to the public that all that was necessary to have symphonic music in San Diego was to gather the requisite players together and play,” Michel added.

“Playing did take our minds off picketing and collecting unemployment, but now we have nothing to gain by putting on concerts,” Bedell said.

Although none of the musicians contacted wished to speculate on the chances of reinstating the summer Pops season at Hospitality Point, their hopes for this type of summer employment were unmistakable.

“We look for something to start happening soon,” Johnston said. He discounted the possibility of the musicians putting on their own summer series, with the staggering amount of organization that would be needed.

“Doing the Pops under the aegis of the symphony association would be the most lucrative situation,” Johnston said.

“According to the figures we’ve been given,” Berton said, “the Pops is an endeavor that essentially breaks even. Even if funds to start up the Pops needed to be borrowed, the money would be made back, and the overall debt would not be increased.”

In contrast to the current lean season, this week has been an oasis of work--and even overtime--for the instrumentalists because of the American Ballet Theatre’s week of performances at Civic Theatre. “Just about everybody who was contracted with the San Diego Symphony is playing in the pit for ABT,” Bedell said.