Year: 2020

Project RESTART-19 Begins To Publish Findings

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Since it was announced in the Spring, we’ve been following the large scale German study, Project RESTART-19, a multi-disciplinary research effort in Germany to identify conditions necessary to safely restart live performance events. The group began releasing results from their study at the end of October with a kick-off press briefing on October 29, 2020. While the project’s website includes quite a few videos from that event, none are in English. Having …

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Shop Talk S01E07: Changing Your Narrative

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How does an industry with so many decades of carefully crafted narrative go about changing on a dime in response to a prolonged pandemic? This was the basic premise of today’s episode and in order to talk it out, I invited two of the sharpest minds I know that work inside the arts field: author, interviewer, and curator Mark Larson and 6-time Emmy Award winning writer/producer, Scott Silberstein. I dare you …

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What The Arts Can Hope To See From A Biden Administration

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Now that it’s official and a Biden administration takes the reins in January, we can expect to see rapid movement on numerous issues important to the country as a whole. But what about the arts and culture sector? In addition to improved arts funding, there are plenty of issues a Biden administration can impact. Here are few I hope to see movement on within the first year: Don’t just restore net …

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Colorado Springs Philharmonic Employer Rejects Musician Offer To Waive An Entire Season Of Salary

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It appears mediation in the Colorado Springs Philharmonic labor dispute is running into difficulties. The musicians released a public statement on 11/5/2020 to inform supporters that their recent offer to waive an entire season’s salary made was rejected. Most recently, working with a federal mediator, we offered to accept the total loss of our guaranteed salaries for the entire period of the pandemic and for six months beyond the end of the pandemic. …

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While Still Painful, Short-Term Concessionary Agreements Are The Best Option For Most Orchestras

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The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra recently announced a 30 percent cut in musician wages for the rest of 2020 and the 11/2/2020 edition of the San Francisco Chronical published an article by Joshua Kosman that provides important content. This is not a new deal, rather, a reopener, which is when both parties agree to amend terms in an existing agreement. The agreement’s full term is through November 2022. Given that the …

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