Is It Time To Bust Up The Season?

Joe Patti just keeps you thinking and his post from 10/8/2014 was no exception in that he considers the value in breaking season announcements up into two thresholds. For the orchestra field, it makes an increasingly strong case for groups that take three or more weeks off between events around the New Year and once you wrap your head around thinking of your traditional season broken up by a pair of …

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What’s Your Child Policy?

Yesterday’s post about the MTT situation at the New World Symphony prompted a number of direct replies from arts managers who were all quite keen to share a wide variety of anecdotes and most took the time to mention their respective organization’s child policy (or lack thereof), all of which made me curious to know more as I’ve never seen any sort of field-wide survey (if you know of one, I’d …

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Okay, Let’s Talk About MTT

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In case you’ve been buried under a mountain of work lately, you’ve probably seen the hubbub surrounding Michael Tilson Thomas’ (MTT) encounter with a mother and eight year old child during a 10/17/2014 performance with the New World Symphony. In short, there’s plenty of talk about whether MTT acted appropriately and accounts of the actual event vary depending on which source you read. The story originally broke in the South Florida …

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Atlanta Musicians Offer Last Minute Counter Proposal

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There are mixed reports in mainstream media about a revised counter-proposal from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Players’ Association (ASOPA) eleventh hour counterproposal to their employer’s 10/27/2014 4:00pm ET deadline to accept an offer that contained a clause guaranteeing management the right to set the number of full time musicians as they see fit as opposed to certifying a fixed minimum number. According to an article by Howard Pousner in the 10/27/2014 …

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Expect More Cancellations In Atlanta

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After three weeks of mediated negotiations, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO)/Woodruff Arts Center (WAC) are no closer to an agreement with their musicians than before they locked them out on 9/7/2014. According to an article by Jenny Jarvie in the 10/24/2014 edition of ArtsAtl.com, the WAC remains firmly entrenched, failing to modify their previous offer while a press statement from the musicians indicates that have offered concessions from previous proposals on …

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