With apologies to my friends, colleagues and fellow musicians

If you have toured my blog sometime in the last week or so, you will have noticed that many of my previous posts are no longer available for viewing on my blog. I know many of you use my blog search link to look up events and photos of you and your colleagues taken at various events or to check for upcoming orchestra and chamber concerts in our area along with ballet, opera and symphonic productions.


Unfortunately, due to some recent events in my professional life over which I had absolutely no control, I have found it necessary to remove from my blog certain orchestra events and photos I have posted over the past 3 years, a rather turbulent time in the history of the Shreveport Symphony. For me, wasted effort? I'm still weighing that one out. In fact, there are around 55 posts and several pages that are no longer included on my blog. Why? You may ask!

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My goal over the past three years in this blog has been to promote the arts and the musicians in our area, especially classical music of which I have been a part for almost 50 years as a Horn player, 32 of these years spent as the first full-time Personnel Manager of the SSO. I play in several other area orchestras which includes SSO work with the Shreveport Opera and the Shreveport Metropolitan Ballet, all of which have been mentioned and promoted on my blog. I am a co-contributor for Robert Trudeau's Shreveport Arts Blog. 


I am a professional musician and have been since I was 9 years of age, (I was a professional singer in my family sister trio act, and BTW, my sisters were also talented Horn players), but my options have never been made more clear to me than a week ago when I determined that there were some who wished to have me removed from the SSO for what I think is no less and no more than what others have done before me. Surely, I thought, my transgressions (if there ever were any) cannot be more obtrusive than certain others around me . . . . . . . .  after all, we all have our bad days and good days as players. Surely a contract (supposedly issued in good faith) cannot be rescinded 2 months after it has been issued to and signed by a tenured player. 


Unfortunately, however, some VERY UNIQUE LANGUAGE "popped up" in the 2010-2012 MCBA (a copy of which has yet to be seen by most of our orchestra members, including me at that time), which allows a musician to be terminated even after an Individual Contract (or Letter of Intent in a negotiation year) has been signed by both parties. This language is new to me; I had never seen it until recently. How did it get there? Why? And who wrote it? This master contract was written during our "Summer of Discontent", 2010 and there were many versions of it, one of which apparently was signed by both negotiating parties.


This language regarding termination and appeals must be changed, corrected and clarified in our next Collective Bargaining Agreement to protect our musicians and the integrity of our symphony orchestra. 


As for me, I am currently COLLATERAL DAMAGE, caught in this vice grip of unintended LANGUAGE which is slowly squeezing and testing my artistic patience.