.....continued

That rescue came in 2003, when Pusateri came out of nowhere with a six-figure pledge that saved the orchestra from oblivion. There would be another brink during the first few months of 2006, a time when the orchestra came within hours of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Never before had the organization's circumstances seemed so desperate.

Out of that winter of fiscal discontent, with musicians pitted against management and a board bent on substantially reducing the core of full-time players, the orchestra somehow found a way forward.

Rather than see their ranks decimated, the musicians agreed to severe reductions in their base compensation. Without such collective self-sacrifice, the LO likely would have dissolved.

Pusateri had a rough ride through those months. Uncharacteristically, he found himself opposing the very players who'd once embraced him as their savior. Completely characteristically, though, he insisted on addressing the players face to face in their union hall — a most unorthodox approach to negotiations. Yet again, however, it was just Joe being Joe.

Few board members, or indeed, board presidents, could claim such untraditional backgrounds. Looking back over the past 25 years, only Stan Curtis' regime could rival Pusateri's for its sheer anti-high-art-establishment imperative.

But Pusateri made everyone else appear just a bit tame.

No one else could stride to a microphone on the Whitney Hall stage and speak as plainly and persuasively as he often did.

Under Pusateri's watch, bolstered more recently by CEO Brad Broecker's own shrewd marketing instincts, the orchestra has sought a populist appeal without diminishing its classical foundation. Hiring Jorge Mester to reprise his role as music director was an unusual move to be sure, but it was consistent with Joe P's worrying less about convention and more about reaping tangible benefits.

Along the way, the orchestra paid off its accumulated debt (which Pusateri marked last year, in his winking fashion, by burning the loan documents at the end of a board meeting), and has balanced its operating budgets. He's put skilled colleagues on the board and encouraged frankness with this newspaper that previous regimes didn't always share.

Now Pusateri can go back to concentrating energies on his company, Elite Homes, which has been largely administered lately by his brother, Rocky. Still, don't expect him to depart entirely from orchestra affairs. The board was smart enough to create a new position, immediate past president, to make sure that Joe P doesn't stray too far from the organization he helped preserve, protect and defend.

Andrew Adler can be reached at (502) 582-4668.