Seattle Symphony musicians off the payroll -for now

The Seattle Symphony musicians are now in the same position as thousands of their fellow artists: temporarily out of work because of the coronavirus.

The 88 members of the Seattle Symphony and Opera Player’s Association, the musicians’ union, have agreed to move to standby status as of April 13. Although they won’t be paid, the musicians will continue to receive full health benefits.

Associate principal trumpet player Alexander White, chair of the Player's Assocation, says they’ve been in talks with orchestra administrators since March 11, when Governor Jay Inslee put the first public gathering restrictions in place.

The musicians join a growing list of artists, arts administrators, educators and support staff who’ve been furloughed, laid off, or otherwise forced into unemployment due to the ongoing pandemic. The local arts advocacy group Arts Fund surveyed more than 100 area nonprofit arts groups last month; as of March 19, more than 2,000 employees were out of work.

Although SSO suspended programming through May 31, the musicians continued to receive paychecks. But with lost revenues mounting to more more than $1.3 million dollars a month, the orchestra’s President and Chief Executive Krishna Thiagarajan says the orchestra needed to cut $2.5 million in costs, to try to help the organization weather the closures.

“It came to a point about a week and a half ago that we had to make deeper sacrifices to stabilize the organization,” Thiagarajan said.

Many Symphony employees had already taken pay cuts. Senior administrators like Thiagarajan slashed their salaries in half. Union leader White says they wanted to look out for the musicians' welfare and the orchestra's health.

"So on the other side of COVID-19, we can come really come back to normal," White says.

But he acknowledges that when the situation finally eases, things will not be back to normal. Public health officials are likely to keep social distancing guidelines in place even when venues reopen, to prevent people from reinfecting one another. That would mean audiences coming back at 50% capacity, when theaters and auditoriums are finally hosting performances again.

Unlike leaders many of the city’s smaller nonprofit arts groups, who worry if they'll survive coronavirus, SSO leader Thiagarajan isn’t worried that the pandemic will force the orchestra's permanent closure.

“We’ve been around for two world wars, more than 120 years of history,” Thiagarajan said. “We will find a way and we will survive.”