The chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians is Bruce Ridge. He’s been a tireless representative of the vast majority of professional orchestra musicians in the US, and his analysis is thoughtful and worth considering. I present it here for your consideration.
In recent days, there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the release of a report by economist Robert J. Flanagan, commissioned by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, titled “The Economic Environment of American Symphony Orchestras.” On behalf of the ICSOM Governing Board. I thought I would share some brief observations about the report and the work of Mellon as well as the oft-referred to “Elephant Task Force.”
It seems that every few years or so a new report is commissioned and released about the Symphony Orchestra industry in America that suggests that orchestras are not sustainable, and they generally place the blame, at least partly if not occasionally entirely, on musician salaries. It is difficult to determine just when the industry became so committed to proving to its public that failure is inevitable, but the self-destructive pattern of behavior has been around for decades. A United Press International article from 1970 famously depicts the findings of the death sentence report of that era, titled “25 Symphonies Doomed to Die.”