{"id":2756,"date":"2009-06-23T11:05:16","date_gmt":"2009-06-23T18:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=2756"},"modified":"2013-02-07T19:47:36","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T03:47:36","slug":"the-new-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/23\/the-new-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"the new normal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conductor Bill Eddins has a great post<\/a> 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”.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are two paragraphs that I found particularly interesting:<\/p>\n

The other side of that coin are the Musicians. God help us but we all know people who think that their contribution to the orchestra consists entirely of just showing up and playing, with the expectation that everything else that concerns the organization should be taken care of for them. The phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Board should just raise more money\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has been used as a panacea for deep structural problems more than once in my 20-year professional career and it shows a fundamental misunderstanding as to the workings of inter-organizational dynamics, especially since we live in the non-profit world. Why should the Board just raise more money if you have not given them a compelling reason to actually care? Remember, please, that the odds run strongly towards said Board members having very little knowledge of your many years of lessons, your skipping classes @ Juilliard\/Eastman\/USC\/Curtis\/Cleveland\/Cincinnati\/etc. conservatories so that you can practice, and the dedication necessary to get into a decent orchestra through that horrible audition process. From the outside \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and a musicians whole life style\/concept is utterly foreign to many Board members \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it seems that Musicians (at least in the more stable orchestras) are pretty well paid (with fairly decent benefits) to sit around and do something on the weekend that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to be fun. Just because we can tell that the 2nd Trombone player isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really up to snuff does not mean that the Board Chair can, and the idea of me practicing 3 hours a day in June so that I have a hope of getting together a recital in February, 2010 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the reality of that probably doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make much sense to them. We musicians have been doing what we do since we were 6 years old. The Board chair decided on what he\/she\/it was going to do in life during grad school. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge difference right there.<\/p>\n

But if one looks at the organization as a whole then probably the greatest concern is the non-profit system itself. The Board is not directly effected by something going horribly wrong (they have their day jobs), administrative salaries lag so far behind the for-profit world that rapid and debilitating turnover is inevitable and consistent quality performance is almost unheard of, and then there is the negotiation process between the orchestra and the musicians. This last point seems designed to divorce the concepts of 1) long term fiscal health for the organization; and 2) the well being of its most important employees \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the musicians themselves. This negotiation process is straight out of the for-profit world and generally has little to do with the disadvantages of the non-profit reality. Who cares who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153won\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the negotiations if 1) the musician\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s salaries\/benefits become so paltry that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re miserable and it becomes increasingly hard to fill open positions because people start bypassing your auditions (let alone the extra jobs they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to take to make ends meet); or 2) the musicians are promised so much in salaries\/benefits that the organization is forced into permanent stop-gap fundraising mode with a constant sense of living on a knife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s edge as the result? What is too often ignored in the negotiation process is that the health of the organization and the health of the orchestra (meaning the musicians) is intertwined. The us vs. them mentality of the 1950s is na\u00c3\u00afve when it comes to the reality of the 3rd millennium. If the three stakeholders in the orchestra want to continue with that concept then, if you are lucky, that orchestra will survive, but it will never thrive. The next depression\/recession will find you in the exact same position that this one did, and good luck with that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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”.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are two paragraphs that I found particularly interesting:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[186,2],"tags":[112,585],"class_list":["post-2756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labor-issues","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-management","tag-orchestras"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-Is","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6901,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/15\/smaller-orchestras-matter-more\/","url_meta":{"origin":2756,"position":0},"title":"smaller orchestras matter more","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At least that's what Bill Eddins says in his post from Thursday where he talks about how important it is for smaller ensembles to maintain that all-important personal connection with their audience. The larger the orchestra the more one can be removed from society in general, mainly because your life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "outreach"","block_context":{"text":"outreach","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/outreach-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/To-aCcbT1YU\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":788,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/18\/when-interests-collide\/","url_meta":{"origin":2756,"position":1},"title":"when interests collide","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I think that it's fair to say that there are, in the orchestra world, a number of competing interests amongst the musicians. In an ideal world, we'd play pieces that were enjoyable to every one of us, not too terribly difficult to play while being challenging enough to be interesting,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2963,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/10\/worth-noting\/","url_meta":{"origin":2756,"position":2},"title":"worth noting","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Just observing a few trends from the latest rounds of labor negotiations for US orchestras: Unpaid furloughs seem to be the way of dealing with labor costs, rather than lowering the pay rate (either per week or per service). Managements are trying to trim costs in their own offices as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "administration"","block_context":{"text":"administration","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/administration-the-orchestra-world-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4733,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/04\/orchestras-and-the-national-union\/","url_meta":{"origin":2756,"position":3},"title":"orchestras and the national union","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Drew McManus has opened a giant can of worms (but one that should benefit from being opened, in my opinion) in asking whether the ICSOM orchestras should remain in the AFM union (American Federation of Musicians).\u00a0 This question came after a union leadership decision that is breathtaking in its sheer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1453,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/19\/worlds-top-orchestras\/","url_meta":{"origin":2756,"position":4},"title":"world’s top orchestras?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know how one could actually come up with a list like this and keep a straight face, but I guess it's akin to the coaches\/journalists polls that determine college football\/basketball rankings.\u00c2\u00a0 At least orchestras don't have to navigate the inanities of the BCS system... 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