![]() CMI currently draws its faculty and performers from around the region, though Montalvo said the group would welcome San Antonio Philharmonic musicians. Such funding would help attract 40 regular CMI musicians to San Antonio as faculty artists to help fulfill CMI’s educational mission, Montalvo said. Montalvo said the proposal was part of CMI’s four-year growth plan, which includes a proposal for matching funds from the City of San Antonio to double the county’s funding over a two-year period. In raising objection to the proposed funding, Calvert said nearly doubling the annual budget of a small nonprofit organization, which Montalvo estimated at $380,000 to $400,000, was “not normal,” and that he would rather support a major infusion of American Rescue Plan Act funding to support the Philharmonic. … I don’t think it’s one against the other, I think there’s room for everything.” “I think there’s room for all of us here. Wolff took issue with whether the proposed funding would be divisive. And the fact that over 40% of the musicians that play in that will be Hispanic, and they’re bringing a different type of music, one that focuses on the music of the Americas,” he said. “One of the major things that attracted me to follow Montalvo is the fact all of the leadership for that organization is Hispanic. Wolff cited the ethnic makeup of CMI staff and musicians as a reason for supporting the group. He pointed out that the court has not received funding requests from the Philharmonic, but expressed support for the organization and indicated that the potential for future support exists should such a request be made. “I’m very sorry it’s come down to this, where one arts organization is attacking the other one,” Wolff said. “We presented a proposal that unifies Tobin resident companies … as a way to show a unified front for the arts and as a new model moving forward into the future.” ‘A different type of music’Įight additional speakers voiced positions in favor of and against the proposal before Wolff offered further context. “We ask that this vote not divide arts organizations, but unite them.”ĬMI Executive Director Donald Mason said the proposal is meant to unify arts companies. “This is such an important vote,” Treviño said. “In this particular case, I don’t know that the dignity of workers will be justified” if the county funds a nonunion company rather than the Philharmonic, Thompson said.ĪFM Local 23 President Richard Oppenheim adopted fierce rhetoric, characterizing CMI as a “third-tier quality” company that hires “weekend warriors” and “imported mercenaries” as musicians, and of having a “virtually negligible” impact on the communities it’s charged to serve.įormer District 1 councilman and current San Antonio Philharmonic board member Roberto Treviño took the podium as a representative of San Antonio Philharmonic bassoonist and board president Brian Petkovich, who was on jury duty. Hispanic labor leader Linda Chavez-Thompson, AFL-CIO executive vice president emerita, recalled working with Wolff as a member of the 2018 task force charged with helping the ailing San Antonio Symphony forge a stable path forward. That money should be going to the San Antonio Philharmonic.” Tom Cummins, president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), said the action “is union busting, as simple as that. ![]() Paul Montalvo, artistic director for the Classical Music Institute, speaks during a Commissioners Court meeting at the Bexar County Courthouse Tuesday. ![]() Local labor luminaries lined up to speak against the proposed funding and in support of the San Antonio Philharmonic musicians. After a brief introduction about CMI’s history and mission and his own background as a 26-year San Antonio firefighter and union member, Montalvo announced, “I’m going to make the assumption that you’ve heard and will hear that CMI is anti-union, that we are a scab orchestra. Montalvo was first among a series of speakers at Commissioners Court and adopted a defensive mode. A ‘scab’ orchestra?Īs word spread Monday among the local music community, consternation grew that Bexar County administration would fund a nonunion group over the Philharmonic, with its membership long affiliated with the American Federation of Musicians union Local 23. ![]() Montalvo said the county funding would cover orchestra expenses for both companies, freeing up their funds for other uses. The CMI shares Tobin Center resident status with the opera and ballet companies.
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