On the morning of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony's 2025-26 season launch earlier this month, principal violinist Allene Chomyn wasn't holding a bow.
Instead, she was holding a can of hairspray while perfecting a Kitchener bride's updo.
"I was styling hair for a wedding in the morning and performing at night."
The orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and abruptly cancelled its season just four days before it was set to begin, leaving Chomyn and other musicians out of work.
As a result, Chomyn said, she "ramped up" her hairstyling business.
She had done freelance hairstyling for over a decade, mostly in summers when the symphony wasn't in session. But when the bankruptcy hit, she called PearlGirlMakeup. The Waterloo business, which had once invited her to join, took her on right away, offering flexible hours so she could keep freelancing and performing the small community concerts organized by the symphony's musicians.
LISTEN | CBC Fresh Air: The K-W Symphony launches new season: Fresh Air 10:59 The KW Symphony launches new season The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony launches its new season after filing for bankruptcy two years ago. Allene Chomyn, a violinist who joined the orchestra in 2007, speaks on how she coped during the halt of the orchestra.
Now, two years later, with the bankruptcy filing behind it, the orchestra has launched a new season , organized by the players themselves and a new board of directors.
On the road to their return, the musicians took on side jobs, staged� free community concerts and fought to bring the symphony back through legal action.
WATCH | K-W Symphony is back with a new season called Resurrection: K-W Symphony is back with a new season called 'Resurrection' Duration 2:31 After declaring bankruptcy two years ago, the K-W Symphony has announced a new season with a fitting theme called "Resurrection." Bill Poole, the chair of the board, spoke to CBC K-W's John Dalusong about the upcoming season.
Chomyn has been with the orchestra since 2007 and remembers when seasons lasted 38 weeks, with close to 90 performances each season.
This time around, there will be 19 performances in total — a significant drop.
"It's a lot more sparse now," Chomyn said.
Fewer performances also meant a drop in income for Chomyn and her husband, Ian Whitman, the symphony's principal bassist.
"We were employees of the symphony," she said.
"For the two of us, that was our primary income," she added. "And then we were per service — basically contractors."
Chomyn, right, and her husband, Ian Whitman, stand in their backyard in Kitchener, Ont. Whitman is the symphony's principal bassist. (Carmen Groleau/CBC)
Support from community, other orchestras
In the days before the 2023-24 season was cancelled, the symphony's former chair of the board of directors, Rachel Smith-Spencer, said the board had appealed to major stakeholders for $2 million in emergency funding but couldn't secure it in time.
When the bankruptcy was announced in September 2023, the entire board also resigned.
With no leadership in place, the musicians took matters into their own hands. They launched a GoFundMe campaign that raised nearly $500,000.
Their efforts drew support far beyond Kitchener and Waterloo.
"We had donations from other Canadian orchestras, from American orchestras," Chomyn said. "We had orchestras reaching out to us and offering us work as extra musicians in their orchestras."
Katherine Robertson, chair of the players' committee and principal French hornist, said the fundraiser began as an effort to save the cancelled season before it was too late.
But it just wasn't fast enough.
"The board filed for bankruptcy and the season was cancelled," Robertson said.
The decision cut off months of planning in an instant.
When the bankruptcy was announced, Matheus Moraes had just moved from Thunder Bay to become the principal trumpet player, replacing Larry Larson, who had held the role since 1993.
Moraes described the timing as "brutal." He had resigned from a permanent player position in Thunder Bay to join the K-W Symphony, spent his savings on the move, then suddenly had no income or plan.
"I had nothing to fall back on," Moraes said, recalling when he received the notice of the bankruptcy during a trip to Toronto.
"My stomach dropped."
He didn't get to play a single performance.
'It was paycheque to paycheque'
After the shutdown, musicians had to patch together incomes from multiple sources.
Chomyn styled hair. Moraes took on handyman work with TheMuseum, a downtown Kitchener tourist attraction, on a hockey exhibit, building cabinets and painting walls, before freelance music jobs became more steady.
"It was paycheque to paycheque."
Now, Moraes is the principal trumpet of both the K-W Symphony and the Regina Symphony.
As the symphony's future remained uncertain, Whitman volunteered his time and organized free concerts with symphony musicians in schools, libraries and community spaces.
"I was kind of a stage manager for the first one, moving stands around," Whitman said of the early community performances.
As well as performing onstage, Whitman is the symphony's learning and community engagement co-ordinator. (Carmen Groleau/CBC)
He later got the chance to perform and spoke about the symphony at other events, including at concerts in nearby Wellesley and Cambridge.
"We were playing just to show the community that we were still around and that we were in a dire situation," Whitman said.
That volunteer work eventually turned into his current role as the symphony's learning and community engagement co-ordinator.
Robertson said many musicians found themselves constantly travelling along what they called the "401 Philharmonic" — the highway corridor from Windsor to Ottawa — freelancing with orchestras across Ontario and Quebec, often while teaching privately or at universities.
"That made for challenges, just with family and other commitments, to try and piece together an income," Robertson said.
But still, the musicians worked to bring the orchestra back. They developed a plan.
"We hired lawyers ourselves to look into it," Robertson said. "We then started to look for board members that would be willing to put this proposal through the courts. It was successful, and we're thrilled with that."
Their proposal to creditors , which the symphony announced in October 2024, had been approved by the Superior Court of Ontario, resulting in the annulment of the bankruptcy.
Robertson said the experience taught her the value of keeping the orchestra alive.
"I think it's worth fighting for something that you feel passionate about," she said.
For Whitman, the past two years shaped more than just his day-to-day work. He's now pursuing a PhD in community music at Wilfrid Laurier University, where he had also been teaching bass over the years.
"The bankruptcy of the orchestra really inspired me to move in a different direction academically," he said.
'It's still always worth it'
The K-W Symphony's 2025-2026 season opened on Sept. 13 with Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 in D Major, conducted by Andrei Feher, marking the first full season since bankruptcy ended. The season will also include concerts across Waterloo region and in Guelph.
The musicians also return to Kitchener's Centre In The Square, the orchestra's historical home venue, for the first time since the symphony's dissolution.
Musicians say getting the orchestra back on the stage was significant because of what it took to get there.
"The last two years, we have worked collectively [and] extremely hard to have this bankruptcy and the orchestra back, and so it's a really joyful moment for all of us," Robertson said.
Chomyn said the challenges and instability have never shaken her commitment to performing.
"There's still so much that I take away from it that it's still always worth it," she said.
Moraes said that at the work level, this is all he really cares about.
"The handyman thing I found quite satisfying," he said. "But this gets me out of bed."
[SRC] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/kitchener-waterloo-symphony-musicians-reflect-on-bankruptcy-1.7644611
