Thugs, mugs, and mouthpieces

It was one of the more bizarre, even absurd, local stories of the year. In an ongoing internal battle over the fate of conductor Gerard Schwarz, certain members of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra—they of the black-tie attire, dignified comportment, and conservatory training— had been engaged backstage in a campaign of harassment and violence against fellow musicians. Or so the daily papers said.

"Symphony Musicians Targets of Vandalism" read The Seattle Times headline on the front page of the Local News section on Sunday, Oct. 15. A day before, the Post-Intelligencer published a similar story. The articles spun a tale of "orchestral terrorism" directed against principal French horn player John Cerminaro (described in both pieces as the primary "target") and flutist Scott Goff, both of them vocal Schwarz backers. The crimes included damaging instruments, scratching cars, making anonymous threatening phone calls, and leaving a cup of hot coffee in Cerminaro's mailbox "so that it could fall on him when he reached for mail," as the Times put it. Such an event "could have caused serious damage to his hands," warned the P-I.

"These are the unfortunate actions of a very small group," the symphony's interim executive director, Mary Ann Champion, told the Times.

The stories were the most startling—and, for the orchestra, embarrassing— flare-up yet in what has been an operatic struggle over the past year for control of the institution, an emotionally strained battle between musicians and board members loyal to Schwarz and those who think he's leading the group into artistic stagnation and should be replaced. Cerminaro has been a lightning rod in this debate, as he was admitted to the orchestra over the objections of other musicians, and his employment is contractually tied to that of Schwarz, a close friend.

The campaign has been waged through power plays, leaks, and counterleaks. This summer, after the board voted to extend Schwarz's contract by several more years, musicians opposed to the decision surveyed their fellow orchestra members about Schwarz's performance. The results were never released to the public, or to the full orchestra, but one musician with knowledge of the survey says that roughly 80 percent of the respondents said a change in symphony leadership was desirable.

Before the results of the survey were even made known, however, a story appeared in The Seattle Times attacking it. The Times reported that "an independent analysis of the survey" commissioned by the symphony's board had found its results "highly suspect." The story did not identify the source of its information, though it appeared to come from unnamed, Schwarz- supporting members of the board.

Leaks and media coverage have been followed in many instances by long and shrill rounds of sniping on Internet comment boards such as Seattle Weekly's blog. That's where, after a Weekly story detailing the acrimonious relationship between Schwarz and his players last spring, the dispute took a turn for the truly bizarre.

In a July posting, Cerminaro said he "has tried to appeal to reason in the midst of the turmoil and . . . I have been repaid for my efforts by someone anonymously denting my horn, scratching my car, stealing from my orchestra mailbox, desecrating my photo with pinholes to the eyes and forehead, and phoning my home and threatening my family."

The Weekly allowed the post to speak for itself. A few months later, however, the SSO's interim executive director Champion visited a rehearsal, saying she had just gotten off the phone with a writer for the P-I and was "very disappointed" in the musicians' behavior, according to several players who were there. (Meanwhile, they say, world renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman, in town for a performance with the SSO, cooled his heels waiting for rehearsal to start.)

The next day, a story appeared in the P-I stating that Cerminaro had been the "main target" of "nasty and violent" acts arising from the conflict over Schwarz's future. A similar story in the Times followed. Neither paper stated the source of its information.

To some SSO musicians, the real crime is the way the two newspapers reported the anti-Cerminaro incidents—not as charges, but as facts.

"The word 'alleged,' was never used," observes trumpeter David Gordon. The articles, written by the papers' classical music critics, "were not held to the normal standard of a news story," he says. "People felt slandered."

Neither paper gave any indication that the reported version of events might be in doubt. But months later, it clearly is. Attorneys for the players and symphony management jointly hired a private investigator to determine whether the events described happened at all, and if so, by whom.

While the investigation is not yet complete, symphony P.R. manager Mike Eagan says there's been "nothing sustained" of a criminal nature. "Many people feel these charges were not real and cast a lot of suspicion on the musicians over what was essentially a personality conflict," he says. He says no new incidents have been reported in the months since.

Gordon feels particularly aggrieved since he is the (unnamed) "key player" whom the P-I reported "gave Champion the finger as she left the podium" following her rehearsal visit. Gordon and other musicians who were at the meeting say that, in fact, Gordon was showing Champion his unadorned ring finger after she asked how his "wife" was recovering from recent surgery. (Gordon is dating, though not married to, a fellow symphony player.)