Two days ahead of its planned lockout of musicians, the Atlanta Symphony management has announced that two school choruses will not be reinvited to perform with the orchestra this season ‘because they are not racially diverse enough’.
Within hours of the statement, musicians of the orchestra offered to perform with the two schools for free. This is turning seriously nasty.
Here’s the musicians’ statement:
ATL Symphony Musicians Offer to Perform for Free With Choral Groups
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Players’ Association has sat by in dismay for the past
several days observing the ASO management’s disintegrating relations with Lassiter,
Walton, and Grady High Schools, and the whole community.
As musicians who love to play with the talented choruses at these schools, we want to
help resolve these ongoing issues.
To that end, the Musicians are making the following offer to Lassiter High School, Grady
High School, and Walton High School: We, the ATL Symphony Musicians, will perform
for free with the Lassiter, Walton, and Grady choral groups at their schools. Each school
can use these performances as fundraisers and keep all of the proceeds for their benefit.
These good people are our children, our students, and our future colleagues and audiences.
In short, the ATL Symphony Musicians are one community with them.
We look forward to these fun and exciting performances with some of the top student
groups in America.
Source: Norman Lebrecht, Arts Journal
