Grand Philharmonic Choir to hire musicians from defunct K-W Symphony for upcoming season | CBC News

The Grand Philharmonic Choir in Waterloo region says they’ll work with musicians from the former Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (KWS) who now find themselves out of a permanent gig after its season was cancelled and the organization declared bankruptcy.

The choir has had a decades-long relationship with the symphony and that relationship will continue with the musicians playing in upcoming performances.

Mark Vuorinen, the artistic director of the Grand Philharmonic Choir, says in the past the symphony and choir had a very simple relationship with each group hiring the other for various performances.

“Now instead of us going directly and working directly with the symphony as an organization, we’ll use an independent contractor and contract these musicians as freelance players,” said Vuorinen.

“And my hope is that you know, we will be drawing from the same pool of musicians that we would have used had we been working with the symphony. So in that way we’ll have largely the same musicians on stage with us.”

The relationship between the Grand Philharmonic Choir and KWS goes back 75 years, and Vuorinen says the symphony was actually founded to accompany the choir. Since then they’ve had a very symbiotic relationship over the decades.

The Grand Philharmonic’s upcoming season is scheduled to begin Oct. 21 at Centre in the Square with a performance of Mozart’s Requiem and a contemporary piece by Canadian John Estacio called The Houses Stand Not Far Apart. It will feature all of the musicians from the K-W Symphony as the performance requires a large orchestra.

Vuorinen explains the financial compensation given to the musicians will be based on the tariffs outlined in the Canadian Federation of Musicians union.  

“Before, we would pay the symphony a fee. That covered their costs of providing us with those musicians for typically three rehearsals and a concert — so sort of four days of work. And we’ll do the same,” said Vuorinen.

“You know, it may end up costing us a little more than it had when we had the relationship with the symphony. But we’re confident that we’ll be able to do this well.”

Vuorinen says since the choir and symphony have had such a long working relationship he expects many of the same musicians to be on stage with the choir. As well there won’t be auditions to hire the musicians but he says they’ll “be engaging a contractor who’s a member of the union to do that on our behalf.”

The union that represents the musicians is also working to find ways to support them.

Richard Sandals is the associate director of the symphonic services division of the Canadian Federation of Musicians.

“Some are just starting work and we’re expecting their first paycheck this week and they’re not going to get any paychecks at all. They’ve moved to town. They’ve got leases,” said Sandals.

“Our two focuses are: how do we support the musicians financially right now, and how do we help them connect with the people who are going to help us all replace this, with something that will be a new orchestra that will be there for the people of the region.”