Lincoln Center has reached an agreement with the Mostly Mozart Festival
Orchestra, ending the four-day strike that led to the cancellation of 17 of the
festival's 27 programs, according to a joint statement released by Lincoln
Center and Local 802, the New York musicians' union. The remaining concerts that
were to have featured the orchestra will not be reinstated. But the union
informed its members late Friday afternoon that pickets at the festival would
end.
According to the statement, the canceled concerts cannot be performed because of "the late date" of the settlement. In an interview earlier this week, Jane Moss, the vice president for programming at Lincoln Center, said that canceling the concerts "day by day" in hopes of an agreement was logistically impossible.
The orchestra will vote on ratification of the agreement on Monday 5 August. The details of the settlement — including the resolution of the issue at the core of the strike, the terms under which musicians are dismissed — will not be released until it is ratified.
The Festival Orchestra's contract expired in February 2002. In several months of negotiations, the orchestra and Lincoln Center agreed on financial terms, but not on the provision under which musicians are terminated. The union proposed a system of peer review, in which musicians from inside or outside the orchestra would serve as arbitrators in case of a dismissal. Lincoln Center sought to preserve the current system, in which an independent third party is named to arbitrate.
The issue took on particular importance because Gerard Schwarz, Mostly Mozart's longtime music director, stepped down last year. Musicians fear that his replacement, yet to be named, will clean house when he or she arrives.
Mostly Mozart's concerts featuring visiting orchestras, of which nine remain, will continue as planned. There was some question as to whether the presentation of the Mark Morris Dance Company's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (set to the Handel oratorio of the same name) would go forward; the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, which is scheduled to accompany the performance, has been considering its reaction to the strike for the last few days. Meanwhile, according to music industry insiders, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, to perform on 8 August, was having difficulty finding American freelancers to fill out its ranks, since union members are not permitted to cross a picket line. But both points are now presumably moot.
In the statement, Local 802 president Bill Moriarty said, "We are extremely
pleased that we were able to fashion this agreement that will guarantee the
successful future of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra." Moss added, "With
this agreement I greatly look forward to planning a dynamic and exciting future
for the Mostly Mozart Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival
Orchestra."
