In Sunday’s (9/15) New York Times, James R. Oestreich reports, “A deadline from management to settle a nearly yearlong lockout of the Minnesota Orchestra players expired on Sunday, but both sides appeared willing to continue negotiations. In a statement released on Sunday evening, management said: ‘The board has offered a further revision to its compromise proposal that seeks to end the lockout and result in a multiyear contract, and discussions involving the mediator have been ongoing this weekend. We are currently awaiting word from the musicians regarding the proposal.’ … The players went ahead with their own concert in the Lake Harriet Band Shell on Sunday afternoon, playing for an enthusiastic and obviously sympathetic audience of thousands … George J. Mitchell, the former senator from Maine, has been acting as a mediator in the dispute. Osmo Vanska, the orchestra’s music director, has threatened to resign if the players are not rehearsing by Sept. 30. … Anthony Ross, the orchestra’s principal cellist, announced that the players were planning their own fall season. On Oct. 4 and 5, he said, the pianist Emanuel Ax, who is scheduled to perform in the orchestra’s subscription season on those dates, would perform concertos with the locked-out players.”
Posted September 16, 2013
