Oakland Symphony

The Oakland Symphony Orchestra was a professional regional orchestra in Oakland, CA active between 1933 and 1986, when it collapsed in a high-profile labor dispute and bankruptcy. It is succeeded by the Oakland East Bay Symphony.

History

Founded initially as a volunteer community orchestra, the symphony professionalized in 1958 and became a union orchestra in 1965. Its home was the Oakland Civic Auditorium (now the Calvin Simmons Theatre, not open to the public). In the 1960s, the orchestra was noted for its commitment to new music under music director Gerhard Samuel, giving local and world premieres by such composers as Darius Milhaud, Luciano Berio, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Hans Werner Henze. In 1966, the orchestra received a $1M challenge grant from the Ford Foundation to build an endowment. By 1975, the orchestra's subscription sales equaled that of the larger San Francisco Symphony.

In 1972, the symphony purchased and restored the historic art deco Paramount Theatre, with donations from by prominent businessmen Steven Bechtel and Edgar F. Kaiser, Sr., who also served as board president. The 1973 restoration project was a critical success, receiving an award in 1981 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in recognition of the accomplishment. The orchestra could not raise sufficient funds for an operating endowment, and it sold the Paramount to the City of Oakland for $1 in 1975 in exchange for forty years of free rent.

Between 1971 and 1979, the orchestra was led by Harold Farberman, who programmed more traditional repertory and pushed the orchestra to expand its season. In 1979, the orchestra engaged Calvin Simmons, a young, rising African-American and Bay Area native, who was by all accounts a brilliant and exciting conductor. Simmons's true promise never came to fruition after he drowned in a tragic boating accident in 1982. The orchestra received the ASCAP award for adventurous programming in 1978 and 1982.

During Farberman's tenure with the Oakland Orchestra, there were concerns about his work as music director, and his difficult relationship with the orchestra. When his contract was to be renewed in 1977, the Players Committee expressed their profound dissatisfaction with his work, and the majority voted that his contract should not be renewed. The board of the orchestra decided to renew him against the wishes of the musicians.^[1]

From the late 70's until its 1986 collapse, the orchestra mounted progressively larger deficits and used its entire endowment for current operations, becoming insolvent by 1984. In 1980, the nearby San Francisco Symphony had opened Davies Symphony Hall; although the Oakland Symphony failed to differentiate its programming and image, this was a relatively minor factor in its collapse. The Oakland orchestra guaranteed the musician's union more work than was demanded by East Bay audiences. Demanding greater parity with the San Francisco Symphony, the musicians went on strike from 1985, resulting in the cancellation of the season. Although the season was restored in 1986, the symphony promised more work to the musicians than it could afford. Turning down a demand for cutbacks, the musicians again went on strike and refused to accept concessions. The board retaliated by choosing to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy in September 1986.

The orchestra's legacy includes the Oakland Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Oakland Symphony Chorus, both auxiliary ensembles that exist to this day. In 1988, the Oakland Symphony Orchestra League (originally the Orchestra Guild), formed a successor orchestra, the Oakland East Bay Symphony.

Music Directors

• Orley See (1933-1958)
• Gerhard Samuel (1959-1971)
• Harold Farberman (1971-1978)
• Calvin Simmons (1979-1982)
• Leonard Slatkin, interim (1982-1983)
• Richard Buckley (1983-1986)

References