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Conductor Bill Eddins has a great post on the issues facing orchestras in the face of massive shrinkage of their endowment principal and subsequent attempts to adapt to what many are referring to has “the new normal”. Here are two paragraphs that I found particularly interesting:
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I write one of the few blogs independently-penned by an orchestra member, and I’m not sure why it’s such a lonely job description. However, a rapidly expanding area of classical music blogs are blogs that are written as part of a symphony orchestra’s public relations and/or artistic arms.Â
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The Columbus Dispatch reports that the Columbus Symphony musicians and management met at the negotiating table today for the first time since proposed cuts of musicians and weeks of the season (by 22 musicians and 12 weeks, respectively) were first presented to the musicians on January 17, 2008 (a presentation that the musicians, for better [...]
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Robert Levine*, at his blog Abu Bratsche (best blog name I’ve seen in a long, long time!), points out that the problems that are coming to a head in Columbus are not financial in origin.
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In a move which will likely result in the permanent crippling of a once fine orchestra, the management of the Columbus Symphony (Ohio) is proposing massive cuts of both orchestra personnel positions and the length of the season: the former down from 53 to 31 full-time musicians, the latter from 46 to 34 weeks.
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So, should musicians have input into the programs that the orchestra presents?
It’s not an easy a question to answer. With orchestras, it’s always as many times complicated as there are players in the orchestra – plus the artistic administrator and the music director, oh, and the audience.
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In the upcoming Sunday edition of the New York Times, several letters are printed in the Arts section – you can read the complete letters (as printed) here.
Here are some of the best parts of some of them:
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The New York Times today published an article of not insignificant length dedicated to the Seattle Symphony and its intense level of discord between its musicians and its music director and conductor Gerard Schwarz.
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An article was published today in the Detroit Free Press about the year-end fiscal situation at the Detroit Symphony, which had posted three consecutive years of balanced budgets – until this year. They were running an annual deficit for this year of $2 million, but managed to erase all but $190,000 for the end [...]
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This is the review that did it for me – New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini fairly wetting himself over the Philharmonic debut of conductor it-boy of this decade, Gustavo Dudamel.
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The Jacksonville Symphony has locked out their musicians as a result of a negotiating impasse. You can take a look at the musicians’ website here. I feel for the musicians – they’re one of the lower paid orchestras in ICSOM, and they’ve been having difficulties for the past several years, at least. Whatever and whoever [...]
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I wasn’t able to attend the Oregon Symphony’s annual membership meeting this afternoon due to teaching commitments, but I did read the summary by local arts journalist James Bash, and I have some thoughts of my own.
First of all, it must be said that the financial situation of the symphony is undeniably precarious. It [...]
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