Things just go from bad to worse at the Rochester Philharmonic in upstate New York. The board fired music director Arild Remmereit after a prolonged standoff with the chief executive Charles Owens. The musicians have split passionately down the middle, their committee supporting the dismissal while prominent players oppose it. Supporters of the orchestra are likewise in two minds.
What unites them is a suspicion that matters have been conducted improperly by the board and its appointed CEO. The board secretary has now confirmed that opposition ballots were not counted in a bid to appoint new directors. Both sides are getting lawyered up. At least one lawsuit has been filed against the board.
The organisation is evidently tearing itself apart. Healing is unlikely to begin until a new chairman appoints a new CEO. If Rochester wants to keep its orchestra, the mayor may have to step in with a decisive intervention.
Anyone remember these happy days, not so many months ago?
Grotesque – and growing tesquer.
If the Rochester Philharmonic receives money from NY State or the feds, then maybe it’s time to throw it into high gear and go to the Attorney(s) General.
So can somebody sum up why Remmereit was actually fired (official and non-official version) and why so abruptly? There were several threads about this in the past weeks but it never became clear to me why all this happened.
CEO Owens wants someone who is easily malleable. I think that sums it up. Petition here. http://www.change.org/petitions/the-board-of-directors-of-the-rochester-philharmonic-orchestra-fire-charles-h-owens-ceo-and-reinstate-music-director-arild-remmereit
One thing seems certain. None of this is about the music or the audiences. In terms of true cost. how expensive is it to keep Owens and his cadre on. The cost seems to mount minute by minute. Has Rochester gotten to the point that it’s so post-adult in its behaviors as to be able to act like children behaving badly in public?
Mr. Lebrecht –
No doubt you have access to sources of information superior to mine. But as far as the recent electon for members to the RPO board of directors is concerned it is my understanding that the reason that the secretary did not count the votes for candidates other then those on the official ballot was not because of some dark and sinister conspiracy but simply because the board’s own bylaws required that the names of candidates needed to have been submitted by last October. Assuming this to be the case then the secretary’s actons were correct . Indeed it would have been improper had the the secretary counted such ballots.
As to whether both the pro-Remmereit and the pro-board forecs are united by a suspicion that matters have been conducted improperly by the board and its appointed CEO, I must again defer to your sources as I have not heard that this is the case.
Chaim DeLoye