Late last week there was a bit of a brouhaha over some government schools in the metro Atlanta area and their invitation (or lack thereof) to perform with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO). 

Let’s just call this what it was … a supreme Charlie Foxtrot.

As I understand it, for many years, two high schools in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Walton and Lassiter, had performed during the ASO’s holiday concert.  This year, they were told that their full choruses would not be asked to perform in order to make way for a new chorus from Grady High School in the city of Atlanta. 

You may be thinking .. what’s the big deal?  Apparently the reason that Grady High School was asked to participate was not because of merit but because of the color of the majority of the children’s skin.  Grady High School is about 69% black, while Lassiter and Walton are about the same percent white.

Now you are starting to understand what’s going on here, aren’t ya?

The Cobb County school system released a statement saying that Lassiter and Walton were essentially told by the ASO that they weren’t “diverse enough” to perform with the ASO.  The president of the ASO, Stanley Romanstein, then told our news ferrets upstairs at Channel 2, “We want the stages of the Atlanta Symphony, whether here, Verizon, or Chastain, to reflect the diversity of Atlanta."  He then expressed his surprise over the reaction to this issue.  Imagine that … someone in the arts community being surprised at a community reaction.  These people – as talented as they are – don’t exactly run in the same circles as you and I.  Now I’m not speaking about ALL artists – though someone will surely add a comment here saying that ALLLLLLLL artists aren’t that way – but so many of them, especially the ones who cannot survive on their own – but depend on taxpayer dollars to survive – many of them spend their time mipping and mupping among themselves telling each other how absolutely fantastic they are – and how lost the community would be without them.  So Romanstein’s reported action and reaction certainly speaks true to me.

In a paragraph or so here I’ll tell how some TRULY great artists – musicians – reacted to this mess, but first a story to illustrate the point I just made. 

Many moons ago --- when they were building the Federal Courthouse in Atlanta, the taxpayers forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars for a “work of art” that looked suspiciously like an old painter’s drop cloth that had seem many years of use and finally had to be tossed because it had become worn and shredded.  Soooooo … a clean up crew at the construction site did just that.  They found this monstrosity all piled up in a corner (it hadn’t been “installed” yet) and tossed it in a dumpster.  When the artist found his masterpiece in the trash he had what can only be described as a snit-fit.  Well .. hissy fit might be OK as well.  As he was retrieving his POS from the garbage this artist told a reporter that these people in Atlanta just “don’t have the sophistication to appreciate his artwork.”  Yeah, Picasso … if your worth was worth a crap you would be able to sell it on the open market instead of through government set-asides.

But back to the ASO …

At the end of the day, it took the musicians side-stepping their management to make good on the situation.  The musicians of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra are offering to play with Lassiter, Grady and Walton High Schools free of charge.  What’s more, they’re suggesting that the schools might want to use these performances as fundraisers.   

How about that?  Way to go, ASO musicians.