no concert

The San Francisco Symphony did not open its season last night with a performance of Verdi's Requiem, and I, holding a ticket, was perforce there to not hear it.

I first suspected this was not going to come off when I read the previous day that the union representing the professional part of the symphony chorus had voted to authorize its contract negotiators to call a strike if they thought it necessary.

However, I heard nothing more than that - there was nothing more to hear, it turns out - and, having added a couple more errands to the billet of my trip to the City, I headed up unusually early. The first errand was to exchange tickets for future concerts, and I got to the box office, which is in the lobby of the symphony hall, at about 4:30, just as someone was taping signs to the front doors announcing that tonight's concert had been canceled. Apparently they had just then called the strike.

That figures, I thought, and went in and did the exchange. Then I tromped off two blocks to the main library to do some work on the Tolkien Studies bibliography. While I was there, at about 5:30, B. called my cell to inform me that the Symphony had just called us at home (the number they have) to say the concert was canceled. That's still well over an hour after the last possible time I would have left home for the evening, even if I had had no other errands.

By the time I walked back past the symphony hall, about 6:10, a picket line had been set up, though by that time the box office would be closed on a non-performance night. The picketers were chanting "No chorus, no piece," a rare pun in a labor demonstration. Apparently the orchestral instrumentalists were also out in support, as a lone trombonist was playing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

I set off in search of dinner and then drove home.