The Trenton Times published the following article on November 7, 2013. To read the full article, click here.
Musicians from defunct Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra hope for fresh start
By Joyce J. Persico / For The Times
on November 07, 2013 at 7:31 AM, updated November 07, 2013 at 7:43 AMTRENTON — Musicians from the defunct Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra, hoping to shake off remnants of the group’s rocky past, have formed the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra with a new conductor, new management, revised marketing strategies and plans for a New Year’s Eve concert at the War Memorial.
The only obstacle in their path is the $35,000 needed to make it happen.
“I believe there’s great potential,” conductor Dan Spalding insists. “It’s not going to be like the 1980s when we had 12 to 15 concerts a year. But it’s worth a try. There’s a huge amount of people around the area and no symphony orchestra to go to except Princeton’s.”
It was Spalding, a Ewing resident and the 22-year director and founder of the world-traveled Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, who suggested re-inventing the Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra with a new name, logo and board of directors.
He came into the mix after Steve Kyle and a small group of GTSO musicians began meeting last February to see what they could do to revitalize the orchestra. Kyle, a bassist who represented the musicians during union negotiations — “a shop steward,” he calls it — credits Spalding with getting things rolling in August when they all met.
“Dan really added a lot,” Kyle says. “We (musicians) don’t know how to do these (business) things. We’re just musicians.”
What complicates matters is a protracted dispute over pay that left nearly 60 members of the GTSO orchestra unpaid for last year’s New Year’s Eve performance because GTSO had not submitted paperwork to receive its non-profit funding from the New Jersey Council on the Arts until very recently.