Board decides to suspend play by symphony

The San Antonio Symphony rehearsed for Tricentennial Celebration concerts on the morning of Wednesday Jan. 3, 2018 at the Tobin Center. The San Antonio Symphony rehearsed for Tricentennial Celebration concerts on the morning of Wednesday Jan. 3, 2018 at the Tobin Center. Photo: John Davenport /San Antonio Express-News Photo: John Davenport /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 60 Caption Close Board decides to suspend play by symphony 1 / 60 Back to Gallery

The San Antonio Symphony’s Tricentennial concerts this weekend will be its final performances, as the board decided during a marathon Wednesday meeting to suspend operations of the orchestra at midnight Sunday and cancel the remainder of the 2017-18 season.

“It was a tough night,” Alice Viroslav, board chairwoman of the 78-year-old Symphony Society of San Antonio, said by phone. “We had a lot of very good, very thorough, very thoughtful discussion, but the symphony just doesn’t have the resources to move forward with the season.”

She said continuing the 2017-18 season would cost about $2.5 million.

“We would not be able to raise that much money in such an abbreviated time,” she said.

In a statement, Viroslav said it was not the end of the symphony, however.

Orchestra musicians reacted with frustration and disappointment.

“To be treated in this manner, to put the musicians at such hardship as this, out of work after so many promises, is absolutely disgusting,” said Craig Sorgi, violinist and negotiating chairman of the Musicians of the San Antonio Symphony. “It’s just incredibly disappointing for the San Antonio Symphony and for the city of San Antonio.”

The musicians’ final paychecks will come after the Friday and Saturday concerts with a program of Spanish composers’ music celebrating San Antonio’s Hispanic heritage.

“We are expected to give our patrons a fine performance, but to do that after this has happened will be very difficult,” Sorgi said.

The symphony’s long-simmering financial concerns reached a boiling point again last month when a new nonprofit that was expected to take over management of the orchestra walked away from the deal.

Three of the symphony’s largest financial backers — San Antonio supermarket chain H-E-B, the Tobin Endowment and the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation — set up the nonprofit Symphonic Music for San Antonio. They announced plans in July to take over the symphony’s assets and operations from the Symphony Society.

The transition to the new board followed several months of discussions after large funders lost confidence in the Symphony Society’s ability to project revenues and to stay within a budget.

“It was a combination of a lot of things, from budgeting to corporate support, things that are affecting orchestras all over the country, which are not unique to San Antonio,” Viroslav said.

sbennett@express-news.net