Symphony Given Tuesday Deadline to Sign Contract : Concert: Season opener in October will be canceled if musicians do not agree to short-term agreement that prohibits strike.

The Ventura County Symphony will cancel its first performance of the season unless the orchestra’s musicians ratify a short-term contract prohibiting them from going on strike, symphony directors said Thursday.

Symphony President Felice Ginsberg said the musicians have until Tuesday to sign the interim agreement, which would extend through mid-January and freeze musicians’ wages at last year’s levels. If the agreement is not signed, she said, the Oct. 8 concert at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium will be canceled.

The ultimatum comes a week after both sides declared contract negotiations--the first in the symphony’s 30-year history--at a standstill. Union negotiators and symphony leaders said Thursday they are nowhere near reaching accord on key issues, including tenure and the right to dismiss a musician.

Ginsberg said the symphony’s Board of Directors agreed unanimously Wednesday to offer the short-term contract as a way of avoiding a last-minute strike by musicians. Since negotiations began in mid-July, symphony managers threatened to cancel all or part of the season if an agreement is not reached.

“It’s not fair to our subscribers to say, ‘We don’t know if we’re going to go forward or have a strike,’ ” she said.

Stephen Thiroux, a bassoonist and member of the musicians’ negotiating committee, said he had not yet seen a copy of the agreement. But he added: “I suppose any movement is encouraging. If this gets us talking, that’s positive.”

“We still want to play, but we want our goals that we’ve stated before,” he said. In addition to tenure, local representatives of the American Federation of Musicians are seeking a peer-review process and wages closer to union scale in Los Angeles.

There are no new negotiating sessions scheduled.

Thiroux said the symphony’s 60 or so musicians have not formally discussed the possibility of a strike. And many of the musicians, he said, have made verbal agreements to play in the first concert when called by a representative for the symphony.

Ginsberg said the symphony’s managers need a response from the union by Tuesday to allow time to notify subscribers if the concert is canceled. Rather than refunding money, the symphony would most likely schedule an additional concert at the end of the season, she said.

If no agreement is reached and the symphony is forced to cancel its entire season, Ginsberg said, the orchestra may not recover. The symphony began this season with an $80,000 deficit, the largest in its history.

“If in fact we have to cancel the season, then there won’t be a symphony,” she said.