November 2025 Overture E-Magazine: Use Your Vote! 🗳️

Inside This Issue:
  • Cover Story – Use Your Vote!
    • CA Statewide Special Election for Prop 50 – November 4
    • AFM Local 47 Triennial General Election – December 9
  • Local 47 2025 General Election
    • How to Cast Your Ballot
    • Prohibited Campaigning Reminders
  • Results of Voting at October 27 General Membership Meeting
  • Member Spotlight: Euro Zambrano
  • AFM Announces Sound Recording Labor Agreement Office Hours
  • Healing Through Music: Nathaniel Blume releases a heartfelt tribute to his father’s memory with ‘nootbar’ EP 
  • Recording Industry’s Music Performance Trust Fund Appoints Industry Veteran Greg Linn as New Trustee 
  • Demand an End to the Government Shutdown
  • EUC Update: Feature Film Announcement
  • Entertainment Union Coalition Members Honored at AD51 Community Excellence Awards
  • Graduate Degrees for Union Families
  • Final Notes: Secretary/Treasurer Emeritus Serena Kay Williams, Ian Freebairn-Smith, Stephen Croes
  • Audition Notice: Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera
  • and more!

Browse our full Overture pdf archives here.

For exclusive members-only Overture content — Executive Board minutes, CBAs, Local 47 Wage Scales, Bylaws, Suspended/Expelled member lists, and more — log in to your new E2 member account at ensemble.afm47.org and browse the “Overture” section on the Documents page. (New to E2? Visit our E2 FAQ here.)

Results of Voting at Oct. 27, 2025 General Membership Meeting

At our October 27, 2025 General Membership Meeting, members voted to fill a vacancy on the Salary Review Board and on 3 Resolutions to amend the bylaws. The results of voting are as follows:

Special Election to Fill Vacancy on Salary Review Board
Paul Sternhagen: 44
Luanne Homzy: 17

Resolution 1: Proposed Salary Reductions
Yes: 19
No: 40
Resolution not adopted

Resolution 2: Organizing
Yes: 42
No: 10
Resolution adopted, as amended

Resolution 3: Electronic Membership Meetings and Voting
Yes: 47
No: 3
Resolution adopted

An updated set of the Local 47 Bylaws reflecting these amendments may be found in the members-only section of the Local 47 website, ensemble.afm47.org (click the “Documents” button). (If you have not yet logged in to our new system, please visit afm47.org/e2/account for instructions.)

Final Note: Serena Kay Williams

Life Member & AFM Local 47 Secretary/Treasurer Emeritus. String Bass
4/9/1921 – 10/4/2025

by Leslie Baker

Thank you, Serena. My lifelong friendship with Serena Kay Williams began before I could remember. She informed me many years later that she met me as a 6-year-old holding the hand of my piano-playing father, Dick Baker. I was just starting piano lessons then. My Dad played piano in Earl Williams (Serena’s husband) band, Serena played bass in Earl’s band. She watched me grow going through countless gigs to become a pro bassist. Serena encouraged and loved so many of us musicians. That was her way. Serena is liked, loved and respected by many. There are decades of memories of times with Serena. Let me describe perhaps the most important: When Serena decided her favorite bass, the last one made by Mr. Robles himself in 1962 (he was over 90 when he made this bass) had sat unplayed for too long (her playing days were behind her as she took on her role as a top officer in the Local 47 Musicians Union), she let me know it was for sale. She offered me the chance to have it for a week to decide if it was right for me. After a few days of trying it out we made our deal. Continue reading →

Demand an End to the Government Shutdown

Across the country, federal workers are struggling to pay bills without their paychecks. On October 22, American Federation of Government Employees TSA Local 1260 hosted a press conference and food distribution at LAX demanding an end to the government shutdown, which has now dragged on for over three weeks. Continue reading →