Musicians and their administrators continue to trade vociferous accusations centered on Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO) Director Marco Parisotto’s personnel tactics.
Much of the controversy has been surfacing in the media, both print and electronic, where instrumentalists complain anonymously or semi-anonymously about ending up in the deep-freeze while new musicians whom they view as little better than scabs are temporarily contracted to replace them. Adding insult to injury, these replacements are not Mexicans, the musicians claim.
While Parisotto’s voice is understandably absent from the media ruckus, his actions have been explained by administration figures, notably Jalisco Culture Secretary Myriam Vachez, who on June 13 made some startling statements explaining the rash of retirements and sidelinings in the newspaper El Informador.
“We want to give opportunities to more young musicians,” she admitted, adding that “experts” had declared some JPO musicians’ level of playing “not what is expected in an orchestra that represents a state.”
She also revealed that Parisotto had asked individual orchestra musicians to play for him in “evaluations,” which some musicians declined to do, and she claimed that when the director made “adjustments” it was in agreement with the musicians, “although later they said it wasn’t true.”
The number of vacancies being temporarily filled by new musicians, as well as their national origin, is also being debated.
An anonymous orchestra musician interviewed by the newspaper Mural said that now, out of the 65-to-70-member orchestra, only 16 are Mexicans and, of those, only six are from Guadalajara.
Many orchestra musicians recently discovered they had been cut from the list of players participating in last weekend’s “Romeo and Juliet,” as well as in the recording now being done for Universal and in the planned trips to Mexico City and South Korea — prestigious events that are part of the orchestra’s 100th anniversary festivities. Worse, the rejected musicians said, those contracted to replace them were foreigners, including many Venezuelans.
The musicians vented their anger in Mural and on a closed Facebook page, calling Parisotto “authoritarian” and asserting that, “in all orchestras, there are foreigners, but here 80 percent are from outside and 20 percent are Mexicans.”
But Vachez contradicted this, asserting that the new instrumentalists hired to cover 20 vacancies are not foreigners. “Of the invited musicians who are covering vacant positions, the majority are Mexicans,” she insisted, adding another assertion as difficult to verify as all the above. “The maestro [Parisotto] would like to fill his orchestra purely with Jalisco musicians.”
In a Thursday press conference, Parisotto added to the plethora of figures, saying that auditions are planned to take place in a few months and that half the orchestra will be involved.
Then, moving the focus to finances, he lamented that at the current “low salary,” it will be difficult to attract musicians. He is working with the administration to raise the pay, he added.
But among the press and musicians, many question where money to pay both invited and sidelined musicians is coming from, especially since payments to some orchestra suppliers has recently been very late. When Vachez was asked about the difficulty of paying “two orchestras,” she denied there were two orchestras but didn’t elaborate about the source of funds.
Knowledgeable orchestra observers explain that the current large-scale hiring of foreigners at the JPO would be considered an anomaly in any large orchestra. Although many orchestras boast players from all around the world, local musicians are normally given priority, they say.