The make-or-break moment for the Minnesota Orchestra, which canceled its 2012-13 season after management locked out the players because of labor strife, is now Sept. 15.
Without a new contract agreement by then, the orchestra’s management said Wednesday, it will not be able to call the musicians back to work in time for them to adequately prepare for a pair of crucial concerts at Carnegie Hall in November.
The orchestra’s music director, Osmo Vanska, has threatened to resign if the Carnegie concerts are canceled. Mr. Vanska said in the statement released by the orchestra Wednesday that in order to adequately prepare for the Carnegie Hall concerts, the musicians would need to be in rehearsal by the week of Sept. 30.
The new deadline is actually a little later than the previous one. Mr. Vanska had written, in a letter to the orchestra’s board in April, that to prepare for the Carnegie Hall concerts the orchestra would have to start work again by Sept. 9 “at the latest.â€
The musicians have been locked out since October, when the players rejected a proposal for a 32 percent cut in base pay and declined to offer a counterproposal. The dispute forced the orchestra to postpone recording the next two symphonies in its acclaimed Sibelius cycle, which had been scheduled for the week of Sept. 16.
The upcoming Carnegie Hall concerts are scheduled for Nov. 2 and 3.
