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conducting labor issues recession the orchestra world

odds and ends

Some news from the orchestral front this week:

  • The Baltimore Symphony continues to shrink its budget, the musicians are cutting their wages from the 5.7% already conceded to 12.5% for the 2009-2010 season. [Washington Post]
  • Peter Dobrin writes about African-American orchestral musicians in Philadelphia. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
  • The Indianapolis Symphony declines to renew its music director’s contract. [Chicago Tribune] And the MD is very upset. [Indianapolis Star]

A few thoughts.

The Baltimore situation is disheartening, as that orchestra has been through hell and back with major financial problems several times over the last two decades, and the musicians have had an especially hard time of it.  12.5% is a big chunk of change to give up, especially when times are tough, and I give a lot of credit to the musicians – they are showing that they have a intense willingness to do their part to keep the ship afloat.  It’s too bad that it seems to always come down to major wage cuts when orchestras find themselves in difficulty – and I say this knowing full well that there’s only so much that you can cut the nuts and bolts of running an organization before you simply must start cutting payroll.  And since you have to have a full symphony orchestra to play concerts for a full season, you cannot simply lay musicians off, so it comes down to cuts in wages and benefits.

The abrupt firing of Mario Venzago in Indianapolis points to a major duality which I think needs to addressed in a serious way by American orchestras.  Orchestras desperately want someone whom concert goers and the community at large can relate to, but they also remain bewitched by conductors with a foreign accent and an exotic pedigree.  And yet boards are surprised when the European conductor doesn’t like their boring, provincial town [not my opinion] and are even more surprised when this great find of theirs actually is in demand around the world.  They want to have their cake and eat it, too.  So why aren’t more orchestras digging deep and finding some of the very good American and Canadian talent which certainly exists?  Boston has James Levine, New York has Alan Gilbert, Baltimore has Marin Alsop – clearly they are relating well to their communities, boards, and musicians – and there are hundreds of other very good conductors out there who are dying for a mid-level post.  I don’t get it.

4 replies on “odds and ends”

Charles, have you come across any articles discussing the fees and salaries commanded by soloists and conductors? I wonder if those numbers are going down as well?

Greg and Charles,
We’ve been negotiating reduced fees from next season’s guest artists and conductors with considerable success – even though in most cases we already had agreements in place. I think they understand what’s happening all over the country and are willing to be help share the pain. (OK, OK. I know the “pain” of a reduced fee for many guest artists hurts a lot less than the pain of an OSO musician’s reduction in annual compensation, but they ARE giving back.) And so are the administrative staff members here and in many other arts organizations. I haven’t heard much about other performers like actors working for less, but what tends to happen in theatre is that the companies just schedule plays with smaller casts so they save money by hiring fewer people.
Best,
E

Elaine,
I’m glad they are giving something back. On average, are the percentages comparable to those of musician or staff pay cuts?

I found a few articles that speak to this issue. Here are some excerpts from a May 22nd article in the Chicago Tribune:

-“Guest soloists make $30,000 to $70,000 per orchestral appearance, another whopping line item that cannot be supported indefinitely by organizations fretting about their future.”
(Does that 30-70K figure apply to Chicago-sized orchestras or all of them?)

-“Some orchestras are beginning to fight back. The Chicago Symphony has just announced that beginning next season, it will reduce performance fees for guest artists and conductors as part of an operating budget for fiscal 2010 that is nearly $2 million smaller than originally planned.”

-“Of the numerous conductors, arts administrators, musicians and consultants interviewed for the purposes of this article, not one said salaries are fine as they stand today. When asked if they believe the compensation levels received by conductors represented by their firms are fair in light of the economic crisis, executives at four of the world’s largest and most powerful artists managements — Columbia Artists Management, IMG Artists, Opus 3 Artists and Harrison/Parrott Ltd. — either did not reply, replied with “no comment” or, in the case of CAMI’s Judie Janowski, said the question should best be “addressed to the presenters, as they are the ones paying the fees.”
(I’d love to see a historical chart of guest artist fees as a percentage of yearly operating budget.)

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