Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
Rounding out a year of increases in the 2010/11 season, the average concertmaster did see an uptick in compensation but at 0.87 percent, it pales in comparison to executives and music directors. Nonetheless, the season did witness an anomaly by way of a new all time high concertmaster annual compensation figure of $829,470; earned by Dallas Symphony concertmaster, Emanuel Borok, who retired after that season. The Data In order to provide …
For the average music director, the 2010/11 season was a good year financially. Experiencing an average increase of 12.02 percent in compensation, conductors gained more than either executives or concertmasters; in fact, the average music director compensation reached an all time high of $480,037. Worth noting is the 2010/11 high earner, San Francisco Symphony’s music director Michael Tilson Thomas, experienced a staggering 33 percent increase in his compensation; although that still …
By the onset of the 2010/11 season, the field was amidst the beginning of the worst austerity driven labor disputes for the last half century. Collective bargaining agreements were being reopened in order to incorporate concessions designed to forestall financial collapse and when stakeholders were unable to reach mutually agreeable terms, vitriolic public disputes erupted, oft accompanied by prolonged work stoppages. Nonetheless, the average orchestra executive experienced a 5.32 percent increase …
This year’s compensation reports are all about context. For instance, the data covers compensation for the 2010/11 season, which if you recall was the first really nasty year of austerity driven conflict between stakeholders. The Detroit Symphony went dark for nearly the entire season as did the Louisville Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra started walking down the bankruptcy path. In short, 2010/11 was the onset for a series of firestorm labor …
I’ll be in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan all week for the Organization of Canadian Symphony Musicians (OCSM) 2013 Conference. I’m honored to serve as their keynote speaker on Fourth Generation theory and how it apples to the North American orchestra field as well as participating in a number of workshops and panels. While away, the 2013 Orchestra Compensation Reports are scheduled to go up during the rest of the week; to that end, …