The CSO show must go on

Saving the Charleston Symphony Orchestra is proving to be difficult and unpleasant, but the musicians, the management and the community must keep trying to ensure the orchestra stays alive and well.

Other comparable communities have healthy symphony orchestras. Charleston, with its rich cultural heritage, should be able to do the same.

Last week, the musicians roundly rejected an interim proposal to slash their pay and decrease the number of concerts. Even the management understood why the players were not happy with such severe terms.

But management intended the plan to be temporary while the orchestra is restructured, and the players don't trust management to do right by them in the long term.

Indeed, players earlier filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.

It is going to take tremendous effort, and likely some good mediators, for the musicians and management to regain trust in each other. Players think management has let them down with inadequate fund-raising that crippled the orchestra budget.

Management thinks musicians are being unrealistic about what they can expect until the symphony is restructured. When the board decided to increase the number of players and their salaries, it overestimated the amount of support it could draw from the community -- something the musicians find hard to swallow.

Add to those differences the financial hole that the symphony is in, and it's easy to see why the process is discordant.

Then there is the other wild card. Without support from donors and attendees, the best efforts of management and players will do no good.

But, hey, Ludwig van Beethoven was known to make numerous rough drafts of compositions. As many as 10,000 such pages survive. Something as valuable as the orchestra, like Beethoven's works, is worth plugging away for.

Losing the symphony would mean more than losing the opportunity to attend inspiring concerts. It could mean losing music teachers and church musicians. And it could affect Chamber Music Charleston concerts, which are successful partly because they feature musicians whom CSO has paid and given insurance benefits. It would be difficult for the chamber music organization to make up the difference.

It is unlikely that the community will be satisfied if the only opportunities they have for symphony concerts are those provided by the Charleston Concert Association and by Spoleto Festival USA. It is reasonable to think that, as the community works hard to bring in new industry and new jobs, a significant part of its allure will have disappeared.

We like to think of a symphony in terms of how it lifts our spirits and touches our souls. But in order for the CSO to continue, it's going to take forbearance, flexibility and wisdom.

It will be worth it all if the community is able to celebrate with the CSO a 75th anniversary season starting this fall.