Some news from the orchestral front this week:<\/p>\n
A few thoughts.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They want to have their cake and eat it, too.\u00a0 So why aren’t more orchestras digging deep and finding some of the very good American and Canadian talent which certainly exists?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I don’t get it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/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_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":[299,186,1088,2],"tags":[1569,716,1777],"class_list":["post-2927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conducting","category-labor-issues","category-recession","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-baltimore-symphony","tag-indianapolis-symphony","tag-mario-venzago"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-Ld","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":253,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/26\/violists-are-a-multi-talented-bunch\/","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":0},"title":"violists are a multi-talented bunch","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Just caught this photo from the Baltimore Symphony musicians' website - enjoy! My orchestral repertoire class was taught by the great Rick Field, principal viola of the BSO. courtesy of the BSO musicians page","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/violas_0051.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":882,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/27\/st-louis-takes-download-plunge\/","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":1},"title":"st louis takes download plunge","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Saint Louis Symphony has joined a growing number of U.S. orchestras that are releasing content for download over the internet. The first release is a live recording of John Adams' Harmonielehre, a massive 50 minute work which thrust the composer out of the world of minimalism and into his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"e10635d5-3048-2adc-46d46e22c2a92444.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/e10635d5-3048-2adc-46d46e22c2a92444.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13976,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/01\/17\/2016-2017-season-announcements\/","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":2},"title":"2016-2017 season announcements","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Page Moved: subsequent updates will be made at this location. It's that time of year, when orchestras around the country start trotting out their programs for the next season, hoping to get a good start on ticket sales and advance buzz. I'm going to link to the announcements here, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5380,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/01\/new-musicians-join-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":3},"title":"new musicians join symphony","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We had a spate of auditions at the end of last season, and the results netted us three new musicians who are all now settled in Portland and playing with the orchestra.\u00a0 They are Principal timpanist Jonathan Greeney, oboist and English hornist Kyle Mustain, and violist Silu Fei.\u00a0 Here's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "auditions"","block_context":{"text":"auditions","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/auditions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/jonathangreeney.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7914,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/10\/06\/indianapolis-board-rejects-latest-offer\/","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":4},"title":"indianapolis board rejects latest offer","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Another proposal, another rejection. 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