Last summer, bassoonist Brian Petkovich lost his job and then got a job that had never existed before. Not long after the San Antonio Symphony, with whom Brian played for 25 years, shut its doors, he became the inaugural president of the nascent San Antonio Philharmonic, which as of this writing is seven months old.

For a brief moment in 2022, it seemed like San Antonio, the nation’s seventh-largest city, might not have a major orchestra. The musicians of the San Antonio Symphony, protesting significant personnel and salary cuts demanded by the Board, had gone on strike in September of 2021, and nine months later, on June 16, 2022, the Symphony Society of San Antonio declared it was shutting down the 83-year-old institution for good, declaring a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The musicians had not been idle throughout this tumult, however. They had founded the Musicians of the San Antonio Symphony (MOSAS) through which they raised private funds that allowed them to perform through the spring and early summer of 2022 in venues throughout the city. When the Symphony’s demise was finalized, they set about creating a new permanent ensemble, appointing Brian as its president, and on September 16, 2022, the brand-new San Antonio Philharmonic played its first concert to a rapt audience at First Baptist Church of San Antonio.

In this interview with Pier Carlo Talenti, Brian reveals some of the assumptions and miscalculations that led to the Symphony’s dissolution and discusses his and his fellow musicians’ dreams for how their new classical-music ensemble will serve San Antonio for years to come.

https://saphil.org/team/brian-petkovich/

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