{"id":1480,"date":"2008-12-03T11:43:03","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T19:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2008-12-03T11:45:44","modified_gmt":"2008-12-03T19:45:44","slug":"why-so-many-bad-conductors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/03\/why-so-many-bad-conductors\/","title":{"rendered":"why so many bad conductors?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In one of his recent posts, Robert Levine<\/a> asks why certain conductors or so over-payed in comparison to the average musician in their ensembles, and suggests that the answer might be found in the concept of scarcity:<\/p>\n

It is a core weakness of the orchestra industry world-wide that there are lots of good orchestra musicians and very few good conductors. Adam Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s invisible hand thus writes lots of trailing zeros on their paychecks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he suggests that our own industry is to blame:<\/p>\n

And our industry is very poor at identifying conducting talent early. I suspect that if every professional orchestra in America devoted 10-20 services per season simply to finding conducting talent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including from within its own ranks \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have a lot more good conductors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s interesting to note that there are a lot of orchestras hiring relatively unknown conducting talent (more or less) to fill in all of those concerts that are not covered by other members of the conducting staff or the music director, yet the system of sharing information seems to be fundamentally flawed.<\/p>\n

Artistic administrators of the various orchestras seem to share information, but there seems to be relatively little input from the musicians involved.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a fundamental disconnect between how a conductor is perceived from the front of the house and from the back and onstage.<\/p>\n

A conductor can appear charming and erudite and chatty from the audience’s perspective, but be a horrible stick waver with delusions of his\/her self-worth and poor rehearsal technique from the point of view of the orchestra.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Often it doesn’t matter much what the orchestra thinks – if the conductor sells tickets, then she’ll be invited back. Word gets passed on to other orchestras, and suddenly the conductor has a “break” in their career and are all over the place.\u00c2\u00a0 The converse can also happen: a conductor can be efficient, friendly, precise, and musical, but doesn’t make a big impression and so they’re not invited back – and that impression gets passed on to other orchestras, and they get less and less work.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s where orchestral musicians’ cynicism is born.<\/p>\n

Musicians have the same information sharing network, or grapevine, but it often seems to be given short shrift by artistic administrators, as if we were trying to pull one over on them – but we don’t want lazy, overly-friendly conductors – we want GOOD ones.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re happy to be worked like dogs if the artistic payoff and quality of the working experience is professionally rewarding.\u00c2\u00a0 That seems to be a fact often lost on some in management.<\/p>\n

Happily, here at the OSO we have more good guests than bad, or at least more mediocre than bad.\u00c2\u00a0 There are occasional dogs, but we musicians give quick and vociferous feedback in those situations, and we seem to be listened to more often than not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of his recent posts, Robert Levine asks why certain conductors or so over-payed in comparison to the average musician in their ensembles, and suggests that the answer might be found in the concept of scarcity: It is a core weakness of the orchestra industry world-wide that there are lots of good orchestra musicians […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[225,299,115,2],"tags":[663,3668],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloggers","category-conducting","category-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-guest-conductor","tag-oregon-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-nS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":953,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/07\/conductors-redux\/","url_meta":{"origin":1480,"position":0},"title":"conductors, redux","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Towards the end of any orchestra's season, you tend to hear a lot (make that a LOT) of armchair quarterbacking by the rank and file about the leadership of any conductor within rock throwing range. Some even make the entire organization's woes solely the responsibility of the stick waver. I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":732,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/03\/3-conductors-3-cities-3-newspapers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1480,"position":1},"title":"3 conductors, 3 cities, 3 newspapers","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Mariss Jansons - Amsterdam Marin Alsop - Baltimore Xian Zhang - New York City","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13550,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/09\/02\/haydn-go-seek\/","url_meta":{"origin":1480,"position":2},"title":"haydn go seek?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, that's what the great Leonard 'Lenny' Bernstein is doing here with the Vienna Philharmonic. He's employing a minimalist method of conducting - but he still\u00a0is conducting. He's using his most important conductorial attributes: his eyes and face. All the great ones do - and it's what makes for almost\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/oU0Ubs2KYUI\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":860,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/17\/atlanta-re-ups-its-conducting-staff\/","url_meta":{"origin":1480,"position":3},"title":"atlanta re-ups its conducting staff","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Atlanta Symphony music director Robert Spano and principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles have both had their contracts extended - Spano's through the 2013-2014 season, and Runnicles' through the 2010-2011 season. Robert Spano (photo courtesy Kirshbaum Demler & Associates ) Donald Runnicles (photo courtesy San Francisco Opera) Not much of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Robert Spano","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/spano-andrew-eccles.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3583,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/10\/batons-and-those-who-wield-them\/","url_meta":{"origin":1480,"position":4},"title":"batons and those who wield them","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A great article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the baton that most (but not all) conductors use to conduct the orchestra. And a reminder that we have a world-class baton maker right here in Portland, Oregon: Alan Pierce, former bass trombonist of the Oregon Symphony, who makes batons for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3129,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/18\/young-conductors-to-watch\/","url_meta":{"origin":1480,"position":5},"title":"young conductors to watch","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Alondra de la Parra - Photo: Courtney Perry The Daily Beast has an article about the current crop of young conductors who are either making it big or, in their opinion, are about to (the headline screams: Young Rock Stars of the Conducting World\").\u00a0 Some of these conductors have been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"AlondradelaParra1web","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/AlondradelaParra1web.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}