Coda: Assets Of Syracuse Symphony Divided Among Thee Local Institutions

It's over.

The Orchestra entered Chapter 7, a liquidation bankruptcy proceeding. The bank, the primary creditor, recovered what it could, and in an act of goodwill, distributed some of the most important assets to local organizations.

M & T Bank has closed the books on what’s left of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.

The bank’s regional president Allen J. Naples announced the dispersal of the SSO’s assets to three community groups at a news conference this morning at the Onondaga Historical Association. The bank was the main secured creditor for SSO assets when it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May.

Naples said the orchestra’s instruments, including a Steinway piano, and computer and electronic equipment would be donated to the Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga County. The SSO’s sheet music, considered to be the most valuable asset, will be given to the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University. Onondaga Historical Association will receive the orchestra’s archives, albums and paintings.

Rightly, the music library was seen as the most valuable asset. Without it, it would be impossible to ever re-assemble another orchestra in the future. A lot of that music is long out of print, and the years of musicians' markings on the parts (which in effect create a local edition of a piece) are irreplaceable.

The bank did the right thing, for the city and for themselves. They took their haircut, to be sure, and left the door open for something else to assemble itself in the future. The bank also bought a good deal of that intangible asset--goodwill--so difficult to build, so easy to destroy.

Once again, OS sez: 2012 cannot come soon enough. It will take sober grownups to set the country in motion and productive again, so that profits can be made to spend on important items like a local symphony. Until then, it's chinstraps on. We haven't reached the end of the orchestra closures yet. Louisville has yet to get back underway, and Philadelphia is still in BK. Whoo'da'thunk'it that the great Philadelphia Orchestra would wind up in BK court?

Colorado Symphony may be next.

And The Great Recession Just Grinds On: Syracuse Symphony In Chapter 7, Bank To Seize And Liquidate Assets

This is another sad moment for the musical life of the nation.

Syracuse, NY - In the math of bankruptcy court, the case of Syracuse Symphony Orchestra Inc. seems easy enough.

The folded symphony has $327,000 worth of stuff and $4 million in liabilities.

M&T Bank, the biggest secured creditor, is likely to get everything, leaving nothing for the hundreds of unpaid vendors and staff and people who bought concert tickets they could not use.

“I’m very sorry,” trustee Mary Fangio said at the creditors hearing Wednesday afternoon in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Syracuse.

In the court, Philip MacArthur and Bill Harris were thinking about how to keep the SSO’s library of sheet music. They are musicians, MacArthur on the oboe, and Harris, on the trombone, who retired and now lead the union that represents the musicians’ contract with the SSO. With their colleagues, they made a career’s worth of hand-written notes on the sheet music they say can never be replaced.

Here's hoping M&T will see reason, and convey the library to a legitimate organization nearby, such as a university or public library, so it can be preserved and one day put back into use.

It has nearly zero cash value, in that it is organized around the local situation and tradition, and would not be of that much use elsewhere. Yet, to replace it from the ground up would require much cash and years of work.

Here's wishing the city and orchestra well.