Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
Today’s a literal recovery day for me so just a short post to highlight what’s in store this month: I’m only a few orchestras datasets away from an updated version of the top tier musician compensation. The 2019 update will finally have all but two orchestras with base musician salary figures out though the next 3+ seasons. Spoiler: New York and Boston are both in positions to shift the balance of …
The recent Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) strike is an excellent example of something that demonstrates how much the work stoppage PR landscape has shifted over the past decade. For example, one of the strongest musician talking points is the deleterious impact concessions have on an orchestra’s ability to attract and retain the very best artistic talent. This was a cornerstone of the CSO musician position: If the employer does away with …
After a few days of heavy-duty posts, it’s time to lighten the mood a bit, and what better way than visiting some of the latest tweets from two of my favorite cathartic watering holes. Can we just change the mission statement of the orchestra to: "continuing the tradition of playing white male composers for decades to come" — Shit Orchestra Musicians Say (@OrchestraSay) April 29, 2019 Even though it went through …