I am sorry to hear this. What denomination is this?

I have never heard of a “choir committee”, let alone one that has the power to sack the director…

I’m sorry this is happening to you.

I'm really sorry you are going through this.

Some years ago I worked as a research assistant, conducting phone interviews for this book https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0802829082/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

What you're describing is in a sense perfectly normal. I heard it again and again from small town pastors, particularly those with matriarchies in place, or whose founding members were still living.

Three observations:

Salieri is right. The pastor should be in charge of major decisions, and the fact that he is abdicating responsibility in this matter is something the diocese should be made aware of.

A committee of six can come to a tie. What is their plan then?

It would be interesting to know whether there is one person in particular who is pushing the whole group towards this decision, and whether they think that they, or someone they know, could do a better job. That would be a straightforward conflict of interest on their part.

The pastor should be in charge of major decisions, and the fact that he is abdicating responsibility in this matter is something the diocese should be made aware of.

The Dutch bishops have generally forbidden parishes to give church musicians employee status. That means: no health insurance, no pension funding, no unemployment insurance, no protection against multiple short-term contracts, no protection against dismission.
That's why in the first place this situation can arise: it's not about breaking up an employee's contract; it's about whether the parish wishes to offer me a new one.
On this background, no pastor will offer any church musician a contract - although he is entitled to do so of course - when the financial council, for whatever reason, tells him: we don't want this person (any more); this situation has been created by the bishops deliberately!

It would be interesting to know whether there is one person in particular who is pushing the whole group towards this decision...

I believe that it's especially one of the four (the 'president') but they have arranged to always speak with one voice, so I cannot really tell.

... and whether they think that they, or someone they know, could do a better job.

That's indeed an interesting one.
I suspected that they were trying to hire back my predecessor; he left five years ago for a (musically and financially) better position in another church - which closed a few years later. I know that they missed him, he is a professional musician (but not a degree in conducting).
So I contacted him, told him about my issue, and asked him whether he thought that they might already have "someone" at hand to follow me up without telling me. He replied: "I cannot imagine that they would do such a thing."
I honestly have no clue what their 'plan B' is, if there is any at all...

The Dutch bishops have generally forbidden parishes to give church musicians employee status.

And we wonder why the state of liturgy is in decay.

The Communion of Saints is a wonderful thing, and, IMHO, is underutilized in the modern Church, as if it was superstitious

Valuable point! Obvious choice in my case would be to invoke help from St. Titus Brandsma.

This sounds like how the Protestants run their churches.

It does. Then again, Elmar is in a very protestant country, writ large (from what I understand). Sadly, one also has to question whether or not his ministry will be fruitful if there is active animosity against his efforts, even if he isn't asked to leave.

It has happend, the sheep attack has been succesful. (If interested in more details, please ask.)

Priest = decision maker? Bishops have let the erosion of priestly authority happen in the 60s and 70s, the more traditional bishops of today are unable to reverse this.

But although the Netherlands have been (and still culturally are) a protestant country - 'fun' fact, the remaining catholics now outnumber the remaining protestants - I dispute that what is happening in these 'modern' catholic parishes is a protestant thing.
In fact they are (not so obviously but they are) functioning very hierarchically. They lack the 'synodal' organisation of the committees with well-defined responsibilities; hardly ever formal decision making, but acclamation to what the commitee presider says when summarizing the 'exchange of thoughts' and explaining what is to be done.

In a proper 'protestant-catholic' parish (that's rather the German model) it shouldn't be a problem to negociate your rights and duties as a choir director with whomever has the madate to make decisions. I would be happy to do so, but here (at least in the parish that I have to leave now, but also the one in which I live and some other) discussions about appointing and sharing authority are considered fundamentally inappropriate - I believe that this is a deeply rooted and very catholic attitude, which doesn't simply disappear within 50 years, after having been cultivated for centuries in a church that survived reformation.

Illegitimi non carborundum. Brush the dust from your feet, sir. God is calling you someplace better. We’ll be praying for you in the meantime.

Thank you everybidy for your support. This:

Brush the dust from your feet

is exactly, I told them at the end of the meeting, what I was going to do. Not in anger (although that's a challenge) but as the logical consequence for the best of all.
At least the man from the financial council understood my point (in contrast to all other participants of the meeting) and we finally agreed to disagree on what would have been needed to do in order to resolve the situation.

Of course we didn't agree on who of us was responsible in which way in creating this mess in the first place.
My (subjective) perspective: it's above all their questionable way of running the parish. They pretend to be modern, but they are even more anti-modern (and in this way, anti-protestant) than the most traditional parish can be. They seem to believe that being a member of any committee isn't bacause of being elected to represent the interests of a larger group (choir, parish, parish cluster) but because they have a devine mission to lead people who do not / cannot / need not understand what is the best for them. They were totally unimpressed by the big support that I got from the majority of choir members in the past few weeks, which really was quite striking to me.

Revealing remark of the choir chairwoman: "If you keep Elmar as director, l have to leave", almost crying; quite obviously she didn't mean to say 'I better resign as apparently I didn't represent the choir memers well', it rather sounded like being threatened to give up a priestly vocation - as if getting in this function was a kind of sacramental ordination.

We’ll be praying for you in the meantime.

I greatly appreciate!
I'd like to ask you to even more pray for this parish and its leaders - I fear that their way of running their community might do harm to their souls; those of the choir members (and other parishioners) as well as their own ones...
Please invoke the help of St. Titus Brandsma.

Thanks Serviam for your kind response!
I remember having read about your "quit fired" experience, which must have been even more hurting and frustrating than my current experience.

It’s odd to think, but you very likely are just better off without them.

I fully agree with that! When I realised what they had expected me to do in order to stay (and how little open they had been about it, which I experienced as manipulating and maybe even dishonest) it was clear to me: Even if they had given me a last minute choice to agree to their terms - essentially: total submission to their vision of what it meant to be 'a good director of their choir in their parish' - I would have had to quit by myself out of pure self-respect.

And perhaps, in a year’s time, that woman who is apparently “essential” to the parish, will find her way elsewhere, and you’ll be asked back on much better terms.

I doubt that this is anywhere close to realistic, I now believe that she is only the tip of the iceberg, but...

you may also “die childless” (sans a choir)

...luckily isn't probable to happen either: I do have another choir where they don't confuse my striving - in line with increasing experience - for more influence on choral matters (including music choice) with stubbornnes.

By the way, I have applied for two other choir director positions in the meantime (one a few weeks ago and one right today).