Legal maneuvers multiply in Philadelphia Orchestra bankruptcy case
The Philadelphia Orchestra has come under assault in recent days by two parties whose legal maneuvers could threaten to liquidate its $140 million in endowments.
Legal maneuvers multiply in Philadelphia Orchestra bankruptcy case
Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Classical Music Critic
Latest on the Philadelphia Orchestra's bankruptcy case here.
The musicians start at $70k/yr, the Orchestra does not perform or rehearse on Sundays & some musicians get 12-week vacations (which require costly replacements).. plus the Philadelphia Orchestra president/CEO Allison B. Vulgamore makes $597,000/yr. No wonder they declared bankruptcy. Fine arts equal mighty fine pay..
— Don Cornelius- Don, beside the fact that much of your statement is simply incorrect, it really has very little to do with the matter at hand. The POA administration simply wants to renege on four major contracts which represent four poor business decisions (Entering the POA pension, the rental agreement with the Kimmel, the merger with the Pops, and the POA musicians' contract), and they are using bankruptcy as a cloak for simply relieving themselves of obligations they no longer wish to honor. This organization is not insolvent; It has simply decided to stop paying its bills, and in the process is leaving these four debtors twisting in the wind. Meanwhile, the 80-member board has green-lighted over $2MM in legal fees, plus a sizable PR contract to the man who nearly buried this newspaper. The cause of these financial stresses can be placed squarely on ineffective administration, poor business decisions, non-existent development, and extraordinarily subpar marketing.— SupportTheArtsInPhilly
- Correction to above should read: "... entering the AFM pension..."— SupportTheArtsInPhilly
- SupportTheArtsinPhilly: very well stated!!— chuckw
An 80 member board? No wonder it's falling apart.— verve
Peter Dobrin is a classical music critic and culture writer for The Inquirer. Since 1989, he has written music reviews, features, news and commentary for the paper, covering such topics as the Philadelphia Museum of Art at the Venice Biennale, expansion of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Philadelphia Orchestra's bankruptcy declaration in 2011, Philadelphia's evolving performing arts center and the general health of arts and culture.
Dobrin was a French horn player. He earned an undergraduate degree in performance from the University of Miami, and received a master's degree in music criticism from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Elliott Galkin. He has no time to practice today.
