Cleveland Orchestra resolves contract strike

After days of  negotiations, management of the Cleveland Orchestra compromised with the musicians’ union, ending the first musicians’ strike in Cleveland in 30 years.

The resolution came after the cancellation of the orchestra’s residency at IU, which was supposed to begin Monday and end with a performance at the IU Auditorium on Wednesday. However, the orchestra’s director, Franz Welser-Möst, traveled to Bloomington to conduct the IU Philharmonic Orchestra through a two hour rehearsal.

After the event, Welser-Möst said he was relieved that the strike came to a resolution.
“The Cleveland Orchestra is about making music at the highest level, so I’m extremely happy that we can do again what we’re there to do,” he said.

Despite the orchestra’s ongoing contract negotiations, Welser-Möst traveled to IU to work with students and fulfill the commitments he made.

“This labor conflict is not my conflict,” he said. “I had made commitments and I wanted to honor these commitments.”

Welser-Möst commented that the student orchestra performed at a high level, comparable to The Juilliard School.

Although the scheduled residency has been postponed, Welser-Möst said he hopes the full orchestra can return to IU  next concert season.

“I know that the musicians very much want to do it; I want to do it; the management wants to do it, so where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said.

The orchestra’s strike gained national attention due to its high reputation in the international musical community.

“It doesn’t happen very often that a symphony orchestra makes it to the front page of the New York Times.” he said. “So even though the origin of the stories is a sad occasion, or a tense occasion, to me, it showed us that we are of national importance, and that’s a wonderful feeling.”

— Bennett Fuson