According to documents filed in the Supreme Court of Kings County, the embattled case of Currier vs. Brooklyn will, in fact, tarry on.
As of May 6, Justice David Schmidt has denied the Brooklyn Philharmonic's counter attempt to dismiss composer Nathan Currier's original lawsuit. That lawsuit, also filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, alleges that Philharmonic CEO Catherine Cahill, then conductor Harold Rosenbaum and Philharmonic musicians willfully ended an April 21, 2004 performance of Currier's Gaian Variations--medias in res--only so the unionized orchestra would not slip into overtime.
Specifically, Currier contends that the orchestra is in breach of contract by truncating the premiere of his magnum opus just before the third act at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall.
Though the original amount of restitution was reported as being some $250,000, Currier is currently seeking compensatory damages in the amount of $72,000--the same sum he personally forked over to have the orchestra perform his work proper.
Scored for full orchestral personnel, a string quartet, plus chorus and vocal soloists, Gaian Variations is based around the Gaia hypothesis, a theory proposed by scientist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis that posits Earth is a complex, yet self-regulating system. (Currier, himself, has written regularly about the Gaia principle for Huffington Post, as well as Al Gore's Climate Reality Project.)
Harvey Mars, the Brooklyn Philharmonic's attorney, told WQXR's Brian Wise via phone that the ruling was "disappointing" and that "it will be appealed." In addition to referencing the orchestra's pre-Pierson financial woes, Mars noted that it might be a year or more before the suit actually goes to trial--should his appeal be denied, of course.
As Wise duly notes, however, a conference between the two parties is on the books for Tuesday, May 28.
In the meantime, Classicalite has personally reached out to Nathan Currier (son of Marilyn Currier, brother to Sebastian) for any kind of comment. Rest assured that we'll follow this story even further down the judicial rabbit hole.
Apropos of the rekindled litigation, here, then, is cellist Matias de Oliviera Pinto and Marie-Pierre Langlamet on harp performing but an excerpt from Currier's Possum Wakes from Playing Dead at the Berlin Philharmonie.
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