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Date: 1/17/2022
SPRINGFIELD – The management of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (SSO) has announced the hiring of a new interim executive director.
Paul Lambert, who has 20 years of experience working at the Basketball Hall of Fame, most recently as vice president of enshrinement services and community engagement, started immediately in the new position.
According to information supplied by the SSO, Lambert’s professional experience includes serving as director of event production for the National Basketball Association as well as a career in the professional theater, including his roles as general manager of the Cape Playhouse in Dennis for seven years and as executive director of the Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, CT. He is a graduate of Boston College, cum laude, with a bachelor of arts in English and theater, and resides in South Hadley.
Paul Friedmann, vice chair of SSO’s Management Committee, explained to Reminder Publishing that Lambert knows how to run an organization and is “very able in the administrative sense.”
Friedmann said the SSO was looking for someone who is “very well-known and respected in the community” who could also bring a “new perspective” to the organization.
“We think he will be a big asset to the SSO and to the community,” he added.
Status of labor negotiations
Friedmann said an offer has been made to the musician’s union to end the strike, which is posted on the SSO website (www.springfieldsymphony.org). The offer reads in part, “We will not make changes in your wages, hours and working conditions by failing to issue you Individual Musician Contracts for 10 performances as per the terms of your expired collective bargaining agreement, without first bargaining with your union to reach an overall agreement or good faith impasse on the terms of your successor collective-bargaining agreement.”
The offer continues. “We will issue you Individual Musicians Contracts offering to hire you for two of the classical performances for the 2021-2022 concert season in accordance with your expired collective bargaining agreement. We will pay you wages and other benefits you lost because of our failure to issue Individual Musician Contracts for the remaining eight performances for the 2021-2022 concert season.
“It’s not a done deal as yet,” Friedmann said.
Beth Welty, the president of Local 171 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the symphony musicians, told Reminder Publishing, “We were not advised that Mr. Lambert was going to be appointed, nor were any of the musicians consulted as to possible candidates that we might know. This board has never shown any interest in getting input from us, the people that actually work in the industry. We hope Mr. Lambert can do a great job. We wish him all the best; if he succeeds, we all succeed.”
Speaking of the contract negotiations between the union and the SSO, Welty noted, “First of all, regarding the offer made by the SSO that Paul Friedmann refers to. We made a counter proposal to the offer he refers to way back at the end of September, and to this day, have heard no response from the SSO. We’ve been in negotiations on this contract for over two years now, for a contract that’s supposed to have a three-year term. This is not how negotiating in good faith works. We have always made it a point to respond to their offers within a few days, max. These months of radio silence from them has been pattern. The reason we went public in the first case, in June of 2021, was that we had made the last offer in the negotiations back in March, and, once again, heard no response for months. They only resumed negotiating after we had gone public. But once again, the ball is in their court; they have our counterproposal and have had it since late September.”