Jane's Window: My Spirited Life in West Texas and Austin

13. The Symphony

166 n eTTie JOneS, a neighbor of ours, invited me in 1967 to join the board of the austin Symphony Orchestra (aSO). Believe it or not, for the first few years i served, i kept relatively quiet. The men on that board ran things, but did not seem to have any real enthusiasm for the work. For lack of a regular meeting place, we gathered from time to time in the board rooms of various austin banks. The aSO was the city’s oldest performing arts group, founded in 1911. However, classical music in Texas has always had a rather select following. By 1972, the symphony was considering bankruptcy. at one board meeting, there were only ten or twelve directors present when we went around the table and took a voice vote on whether to declare bankruptcy. everyone before me had voted “yes.” i was sitting half way around the table and when my turn came i said, “The Sibleys don’t take bankruptcy. They never have and they never will. i vote no.” Following my firm declaration, the men were too embarrassed to vote for bankruptcy after a lady said she did not believe in it. although i did not realize it until years later, my three short sentences on the bankruptcy vote had changed my life. after my bold statement at the board meeting, i could hardly say “no, thank you,” when the board asked me to take on the symphony presidency. at that time, leading the symphony was the last thing in the world i would ever have asked for—or been expected to do. 13 a The Symphony 167 T H e S y M p H O N y True, i had studied piano for fifteen years, but classical music was never my major interest. art was. On a more practical note, the austin Symphony was a mess. The orchestra was unable to pay its debts; could not even meet the payment on its loan at the bank. The aSO was a wellknown loser, and when i took over, its reputation was at an all-time low. Clearly, no one in her right mind would have chosen to take on the considerable task of guiding the symphony out of its financial swamp. Here is how my tenure began: i was on a committee with Jim Leach to appoint a new president, but we had no luck finding anyone willing to take the job. “Jane, i have been president,” Jim said to me one day. “So now, it’s your turn.” “Jim, i can’t possibly do it. it’s just too much.” Right after that, some of the men on the board took me to lunch at the Headliner ’s Club. They brought me gorgeous roses and asked me, “Won’t you please consider it?” “Roses and desperate men are hard for me to turn down,” i told them. However, i said i would consider becoming president, provided i could run things my way and serve longer than one year. “Oh, yes. Do anything you want,” they said. Those men on the symphony board reminded me of the former Dallas mayor reputed to have said about the Dallas orchestra , “Tell them i will give them money as long as i don’t have to go to the damned concerts.” With the other board members’ promise, i had permission to do things my way. That is exactly what i did. Of course, i realized full well why they chose me: they could find no one else to serve as president. Once i agreed to accept the job, i had to decide what to tackle first. When i became president in 1972, the symphony had a part-time business manager, a secretary, and a debt of $40,000. in today’s dollars, that would be equal to more than $200,000. The bank was gritting its teeth over us because we had no major Nettie Jones, my neighbor and a great friend. She provided strong support for me during my early days as president of the symphony. 168 C H A p T e R 1 3 financial donors. a typical contribution to the symphony was $25. a “generous” one was $100. That level of donation was why the symphony was broke, even though it began its existence in 1911, and had been performing in austin for more than sixty years. Our debt disturbed me...