The Lost Accord
GUERILLA BANDS. A new orchestra like the present Philadelphia Orchestra couldn’t be put together overnight. In fact, management wouldn’t grant permission to the three remaining string players (one was released earlier) of the Philadelphia String Quartet to leave because it said they couldn’t he replaced in time for the next season. They couldn’t replace three musicians in eight months. (The three left anyhow.) How could you replace 106? Besides, what union man would touch the job?
Throw out the present board? Also an immoderate suggestion, but one the militants like to play with in times of stress. The Citizen Sponsors Committee that rallied support for the strike fund concert at Convention Hall was allegedly waiting in the wings to put up money and conduct operations if given a cue. What would have happened to the endowment fund and the pension fund and various other trusts administered by the Association that are the life-blood of the orchestra, is anyone’s guess.
According to Joseph Primavera, who plays viola for the orchestra and is secretary-treasurer of the Citizen committee, between 35 and 40 people had pledged $10,000 apiece and an unspecified number $1000 each for the purpose of underwriting concerts or a season of their own.
Orchestra representative Freel Batchelder is vice-chairman, but all of the citizens prefer to remain anonymous, except the chairman, young Herbert L Orlowitz (Capitol Pipe and Steel). "You can’t blame people for not wanting to stick out their necks," says Primavera (who obviously doesn’t mind sticking his out). "But," Primavera adds, "even when the strike is over, the Citizen Sponsors will continue to press for directional and sociological reform."
The aims of this group are pretty much in accord with the aims, if not the means, of another private organization, the Friends of the Philadelphia Orchestra. "The Citizen Sponsors want to take over. Our role is supportive," says William ten Cate who directs the operations of the Friends from the office of his electronics business, a carton-cluttered combination apartment-office on the ground floor of a modest semi-detached Germantown house. The Friends collect no money. Ten Cate himself paid for time on WFLN to tell his side of the orchestra story and he worked almost around the clock to get his views (those of the orchestra militants) to the public.
His group even rented the auditorium of the University Museum last month and propagandized for the cause during a free concert by a string ensemble of orchestra men. Ten Cate’s role in the brouhaha is difficult to figure out. An astute music lover, he’s been confined to a wheelchair since an attack of polio cut short his career as an industrial engineer, and he formed a business out of a hobby. But during the strike he was in telephone touch with the situation at all times and showed up at private sessions and sat in on union meetings all during strike negotiations, In fact, at one of the meetings he attended, an angry pro-management man called for his ouster. It came to a vote and he was allowed to stay.
