More and hopefully final bad juju from Ballet Bellevue

If any of you have been following along you'll know that I played a gig in December that bounced the check to the majority of the orchestra. I may have said in a previous post that the whole orchestra did not get paid. That information may be inaccurate, so there is my almost-retraction.

Anyways, I finally got paid today by the Executive Director of the Ballet group. When she handed me my check, she started commenting on how my assertions about the entirety not getting paid were inaccurate and that saying such things in writing are a very dangerous thing for a young musician to be getting involved in. Well, a) I wasn't too pleased with the not so veiled threat and b) She and the organization are in absolutely no place to lecture me with career advice considering they can't keep their accounting straight.

I find that I'm more upset about getting lectured than I was about the bounced check in the first place. The bounced check was an annoyance and an inconvenience. In fact, I had already written off getting the money from it, but the fact that repeated emails and phone calls (mine and others) were ignored and not responded to is what kept me on their heels. I felt that the disrespect shown to the musicians (both young and experienced) was out of line and most certainly uncalled for.

By failing to communicate in an open and friendly way, we musicians were immediately put in a position of reactive defense (some of us offense). The hair on the back of our necks stood up and every non-action was interpreted as an attack on our character and our jobs.
My view was that the greater public needed to know about this injustice. I chose to email the orchestra with fairly frequent updates and write here about the situation. I've written three posts about it and not a single one had a positive thing to say about the group.

When next I post, I hope to have blessed and released this. I do not want my energy or time taken up anymore dealing with Ballet Bellevue. Two cathartic things I did today: walk away from the ED; draw on their logo (above).

Thanks for reading.