Is The New Jersey Symphony Missing The Point?
Mon, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
At the early part of last week, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra announced that they would conduct an internal inquiry into the NJSO’s purchase of philanthropist Herbert Axelrod’s “Golden Age Collection” of historic stringed instruments.
At Interlochen, The Future Isn’t Very Unique
Sun, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
Fellow AJ blogger Andrew Taylor recently wrote an interesting article about how to go about assessing value for "something vague and amorphous" like a weblog. Andrew goes on to say that arts managers are doing exactly the same thing each and every day for their organizations.
Doing A Good Thing For The Right Reasons in Philly
Fri, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
Hot on the heels of being accused by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association (POA) “that their collective efforts at revenue generation have not had a material impact on the budget” the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians are donating even more of their time, money, and energy to help improve their orchestra’s finances. On Sunday, February 13, 2005 former
The Negotiation Process: A Historical Timeline
Fri, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
The manner in which contract negotiations have developed over the past 50 years has been fast and furious. Even the term “traditional bargaining” is in itself, not very accurate since it’s only been used for the past 40 years or so. Before then, musicians didn’t even have a voice in how their contracts were negotiated;
Pension Plans And Negotiations Part 2
Thu, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
To continue where Part 1 left off, we’ll examine how some of the pension issues related to the Philadelphia Orchestra situation have influenced the course of negotiations. The Philadelphia Orchestra Association (POA) utilizes a defined benefits pension plan. This means the POA and not the individual players assume the risk to ensure that the pension
Pension Plans And Negotiations Part 1
Wed, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
Among the many issues related to contract negotiations, one of the leading subjects is retirement benefits and pension plans in particular. This negotiation season is no different, but pension plans seem to be more of a hot button issue. The reasons are related to the ability of orchestra associations to adequately fund their pension plans
The End Of Round One At Cleveland
Tue, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
Well it seems the Cleveland Orchestra is the first to officially arrive at the contract negotiation home stretch. Although “arrive” and home stretch” are subjective terms. Management and musicians have agreed to “talk and play” by extending the current contract into he beginning of the 2004-2005 concert season. This will allow them to open the
The Negative Aspects Of Being Too Nice
Mon, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
It seems that there’s been a good bit of writing about how nice classical music has become recently. The Washington Post ran an article that talks about how EMI took out a bad note sung by Pavarotti at La Scala and the resulting boos in extracted from the audience. The Financial Times published a piece
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire At Interlochen
Sun, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
The past several months have been a very traumatic time for me with regard to Interlochen, and the past few weeks have been the most wrenching.
Words From A Recent Interlochen Camper
Sun, Aug 8, 2004
by Drew McManus
Usually, life’s painful lessons take time to learn. But every now and then someone will come along and see past what they feel and think in the here and now and gaze into the future. Among the flood of email responses I’ve received regarding Interlochen, there was recently a note form David Letvin, a summer camp student
