Musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra say the orchestra’s management has proposed cutting its season from 52 to 40 weeks, eliminating its summer season, and effectively cutting players’ pay and benefits by about 25 percent.
The BSO’s president and CEO, Peter Kjome, said the orchestra, whose annual operating budget is $28 million, has sustained $16 million in losses over the past decade and has concluded that it is “not feasible to maintain our current business model as a 52-week orchestra.”
The musicians have issued a statement saying the management proposal would convert the BSO “from a full-time, world-class symphony orchestra into a part-time regional orchestra,” The Baltimore Sun’s Tim Smith reports:
Baltimore’s music director, Marin Alsop, is one of the most prominent female conductors of a US orchestra. Early in her career, Alsop was associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony.
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