A dispute among board members of the San Antonio Philharmonic is casting a cloud over preparations for the orchestra’s triumphally announced third season with new music director Jeffrey Kahane at the helm.
According to Philharmonic executive director and ex-officio board member Roberto Treviño, a vote was called at the board’s regular June 20 meeting to replace board President Brian Petkovich.
Treviño said board member Ian Thompson, a urologist, was nominated by fellow board member and principal horn player Peter Rubins to replace Petkovich, the orchestra’s assistant principal bassoonist. Petkovich, along with Rubins and musicians Stephanie Westney and Karen Stiles, founded the philharmonic following the dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony in June 2022.
Now, a rift among board members is threatening to split the leadership structure of the fledgling nonprofit orchestra before Kahane lifts his baton.
Board dispute
One board member, David Wood, is seeking to rescind an interest-free $150,000 loan made in September 2022 to purchase the music libray of the former symphony.
Treviño said securing the extensive music library of instruments and 83 years of archived musical scores helped preserve the history of the San Antonio Symphony, founded in 1939, as many of its musicians transitioned to form the Philharmonic.
Wood’s request to rescind the funding made reference to a “collapse” of the board of directors.
Asked for responses to a list of detailed questions regarding the situation, Thompson replied as board chair via email with a statement titled “Message from San Antonio Philharmonic Board of Directors.”
However, asked Friday, Treviño referred to local actor Jesse Borrego as the board’s acting chair, and said the current board is comprised of Borrego, Wood, Marisa Bono, April Brahinsky, April Dixon and Ricardo Romo, with musician Lauren Eberhart as board representative of the four-member orchestra committee.
As executive director, Treviño is an ex-officio non-voting member, though he said he is currently being represented by Philharmonic attorney Kelli Cubeta while the dispute plays out.
In the statement sent by Thompson and signed by Wood, Rubins as vice chair, Westney as secretary and First Baptist Church pastor Aaron Hufty as Chair of Governance Committee, the authors wrote that with the June vote, they “ushered in a new era of transparency, integrity, and more oversight of the Executive Director by voting for a new Chair and a budget with an audit of our finances.”
The two different answers to who is currently on the board are the result of questions over board term limits, with both sides referring requests for more detail to their attorneys.
On Thursday afternoon, the Philharmonic’s website listed only Borrego, Brahinsky, Eberhart and Wood as members, though Friday afternoon the site showed Petkovich, Rubins, Westney and Stiles as board officers along with members Lara August, Borrego, Hufty, Thompson and Wood.
Later Friday, the website matched Treviño’s list.
The musicians’ letter
On June 26, Eberhart sent an email to board members on behalf of the Philharmonic’s four-member orchestra committee representing the musicians.
The musicians wrote that they felt “compelled by recent events” to address any change in board leadership which could compromise Kahane’s involvement with the orchestra.
Kahane arrives in San Antonio to cap an esteemed international career leading multiple orchestras, including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and programmed an ambitious third season for the Philharmonic at multiple venues including the Majestic Theatre.
The musicians’ letter addresses their history with the San Antonio Symphony, the demise of which they note was caused by “a culture of failure to act with a unified vision” and a failure “to commit to the only important and appropriate board roles.”
Those roles, the letter reads, are chiefly to “act in unison to facilitate … the artistic and community vision of the Music and Executive Directors,” now Kahane and Treviño.
The musicians wrote that they “entreat, and in fact insist” the board honor the full contractual commitments it made “by approving the leadership of Jeffrey Kahane.”
To end the letter, they touted accomplishments achieved by their “young organization,” the last of 14 bullet points stating that they have created “a positive recognition and dialogue around the SA Phil in the local, regional and national arts conversation.”
Challenge of change
It’s unclear what’s next for resolving the board dispute.
“At the heart of this is being able to navigate some of these issues that many organizations will face,” Treviño said Friday. “There’s going to be ups and downs and transitions that have to happen for the success of the organization. It’s key to remember that no one person is the Philharmonic.”
Treviño started with the orchestra as a board member, along with Petkovich, Rubins, Stiles and Westney, before being hired as its executive director.
“We went from what’s called a ‘working board’ to a professionalized staff,” which more clearly delineates board and staff responsibilities, Treviño explained.
Change has been necessary in building trust for the new organization with its community, he said. The philharmonic located its headquarters on the city’s historically Latino-majority West Side, has performed free community concerts at various locations including Plaza Guadalupe and Lanier High School, and regularly performs free concerts for young people at area schools.
Regarding the board dispute, “this is where change is challenging,” Treviño said.
The orchestra is preparing to send its funding requests for the 2024-2025 season to the City of San Antonio, which awarded the orchestra $88,000 for the 2023-2024 season, and to Bexar County, which last year gave $385,000. Treviño said this year’s requests will be for $400,000 in funding from each public entity.
Asked how the current board dispute might be perceived among community members aware of the former symphony’s problematic history, Treviño said the orchestra’s goal is to be accessible and valued by the San Antonio community.
“What we have to remember is that we are not only adjusting our strategic outlook, but we are also wanting to make sure that we rebuild trust in this community, with [philanthropic] foundations, with our donors, with the city, the county, with corporations,” he said.
In their letter, the musicians put it this way:
“There have been far too many deep sacrifices, and too much hard work done in pioneering an entirely new arts organization to allow fear, personal divisions, self-interested behavior or competing agendas, to cause its failure now.”