By Leo W. Gerard, International President, USW

On this holiday, we can rant with Glenn Beck, kick the dog and hate the neighbor lucky enough to retain his job. Or we can do something different. We can join with our neighbors, employed and unemployed, our foreclosed-on children, our elderly parents fearing cuts in their Social Security lifeline and our fellow workers worrying that the furlough ax will strike them next. Together we can organize and mobilize and create a grassroots groundswell that gives government no choice but to respond to our needs, the needs of working people.

When Will Schwarz stepped down as Music Director of the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra in 1999 he quipped: “I think 50 years is long enough”. Maestro Schwarz always had a quick wit and sharp intellect, and this tongue-in-cheek comment was typical of him.

Maestro Schwartz joined the music faculty at CSU in 1949 after serving in the military and touring as a solo violinist. He felt that Fort Collins would be a good place to raise a family and immediately took over the reins of the Fort Collins Symphony.

Richard Edward Geertz died at his home in Boulder on July 17, 2010. He was 65. A memorial Mass will be celebrated at St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish in Boulder on Friday, August 27 at 5:30pm. Burial will be at 10:00am Saturday, August 28 at Sacred Heart of Mary cemetery. He is survived by his wife of 36 years Mary Jungerman and two daughters, Lois Kathryn Geertz and Clara Elizabeth Geertz, a brother John Geertz-Larson and two sisters, Wendy Geertz and Kathryn Schopp. Read On

“Attention shoppers! Can I get a price check on a cellist?”

The Whole Foods store in the Streets at Southglenn (University and Arapahoe) will be donating 5% of all sales this Wednesday August 11th to the Junior Symphony Guild’s “Inside the Orchestra” programs— benifiting the DMA musicians who make up the ensemble.

This is part of Whole Foods’ Community Giving Day— and is at the Southglenn store only. Student pianists who perform with the orchestra will be giving a recital throughout the day and Music Director Tom Jensen will be helping “bag groceries” in white tie and tails.

KUSA channel 9’s Kirk Montgomery will be there to film a piece for their 4P newscast.

This is a great way to help fund our local musicians while buying food that you need anyway!

So come out and support the JSG and your DMA musicians this Wednesday August 11!

JSG Website

New York, NY – The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Kenneth Shirk of Local 99 (Portland, OR) to serve as Assistant to the President for the Western United States.

“We’re asking the public to help save this orchestra every one of us loves — an orchestra that enriches our lives and makes us proud, an orchestra that brings us recognition worldwide. We want the people to continue hearing great symphonic music at the level of quality they are used to and deserve,” Thompkins said.

“We want them to know that management refuses to negotiate. Not budging from its demands but merely repackaging them is not negotiating. The musicians look forward to honest negotiations — not charades from management — to arrive at a contract that guarantees the eventual restoration of our status as one of America’s top ten symphonic orchestras.

Gulf Coast RecOILs from Bad Pollution
by Ken Davies

It wasn’t that long ago (2005) when hurricane Katrina washed an average of six blocks of buildings off the entire 80 mile coast of Mississippi. We’ll still be rebuilding for another ten years while also recovering from insurance extortion, Wall Street bailouts and its effects on home values, and now recOILing from the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Thanks to BP, our “Redneck Riviera” is moving toward becoming a “Wretched Riviera.”

It has all been like a horror movie unfolding ever so slowly. Anxiety and despair mount daily as one awaits each next troubling physical, chemical, economic, social or political creature to emerge from this lagoon. You can follow local Mississippi news headlines at http://www.sunherald.com/oilspill/. Disturbing are the pictures of shores and marshes soaked with oil. These will take generations to recover just like the Alaskan shores, which have still not recovered from Exxon Valdez. There are confirmed reports of BP, sometimes with official assistance, preventing journalists and photographers from gaining access to the areas. But they got there anyway. Heart breaking are the photos and videos of oil covered wildlife struggling to escape the slimy muck. Over 350 pictures of Gulf oil devastation and its effects can be seen at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/louisiana-oil-spill-2010_n_558287.html. There has also been such an abundance of political finger pointing and side-taking across the media that folks outside this area are starting to forget that not only hundreds of thousands of residents are being adversely affected, but also 11 oil rig workers were killed out there because BP took shortcuts on safety.

By BOB HERBERT
NY Times
Published: July 9, 2010

Bob Herbert Bob Herbert
In April 1968, the same month that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, where he had gone to support striking sanitation workers, the president of the powerful auto workers’ union, Walter Reuther, traveled to Memphis to give the strikers critically needed financial support.

The sanitation workers were black. In his biography of Reuther, Nelson Lichtenstein noted that the check he handed over to the strikers was the largest outside contribution that they would receive. Some officials at the United Automobile Workers headquarters in Detroit were taken aback. “But Reuther forged ahead,” Lichtenstein wrote, “offering an impassioned defense of interracial solidarity.”
Complete Story

The Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra will hold auditions in early September 2010 for the following tenure-track positions:

Section Violin (one opening)
Utility/Assistant Horn

For information, including application procedure and repertoire, please send a one-page professional resume by email to (kpeoria@boulderphil.org). Please specify your instrument in the subject line.

The deadline to receive resumes is August 11, 2010.

The Richardson Symphony, Inc. has been placed on the International Unfair List of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada. Read On