Winnie and Allan,
Your letter below was right on the money. The chamber music concerts, in my opinion, are some of the best offerings that the NHMF has to offer during the summer. Orchestra concerts give one a good idea of how musicians play AS A GROUP but there is no substitute for chamber music and solo recitals to really hear how a musicians plays individually. Over the last 6 years or so I can only remember David Graham attending one or two chamber music concerts. I was up in Plymouth for only the 4th week this year (I have been at the NHMF for six weeks every year since ’83) and I heard an exceptional chamber music performance in Silver Hall that Tuesday but, of course, there was no sign of Graham or
Fogel.
If their goal is truly for music making that is “collaborative” “fresh”, “relevant” and “engaging” and part of their goal was to see if we were up to snuff on those issues, they would have attended those concerts and even would have butt-in on a few of their rehearsals.
The whole “reapplication” process was to scare us away and to give them an excuse to bring in their own people to replace us. Read: Roosevelt University
It stinks and the shitty agreement the orchestra committee agreed to, amounts to nothing more than a one year reprieve.
By next year all will have calmed down. The orchestra will be bigger and the people they bring in (students included) will all be good musicians and the orchestra will sound good. In the following year (2011) more “incumbent” musicians will be gone and the whole thing will blow over. Graham and Fogel will have won and we (except a masochistic few) will all be gone. With Fogel on board the money will follow and, who knows, they may even get enough to break ground at the Red Hill property. Graham will continue to collect his $100,000+ salary (and a free place to live – talk about a cash cow!) and the musicians new on board will start to get restless for being underpaid. A whole new cycle of management/labor strife will ensue and those new musicians will probably get screwed too.
If you really want change, fight for the removal of Graham and Fogel and shake up the board. Unfortunately, the most expedient way to achieve those goals it to work things in such a way as to stop the flow of $ into the NHMF coffers. This, in essence, has the effect of killing the patient to stop the disease.
I am finished in New Hampshire, and because of my accident in ’05, I am washed up as a musician. You guys have been wonderful and I will miss seeing you in downtown Plymouth.
Have a great life!
Jay Lichtmann