I have an article published at The Partial Observer today that deals with the issue of video game music.  On May 10th, the L.A. Philharmonic gave a performance featuring music from the video game “Final Fantasy” and tickets sold out with three days of going on sale.   But the concert wasn’t their idea; the orchestra

Fellow AJ Blogger Tyler Green posted an article this week where he sums up one of the leading problems with non profit management in two succinct sentences: “The best non-profit administration is done in private, so seemlessly that no one outside senior staff and the board knows what’s really going on. That makes it all

Throughout this series of articles there has been an ongoing discussion about music directors not having to spend as much time performing as compared to the musicians.  So what exactly do music directors do with all of this down time?  Well, you’ll find them doing everything from guest conducting appearances at other orchestras to serving

Today we continue with part 2 of our examination of music director compensation.  In particular, we’ll explore the salaries for music directors and base musicians for 29 ROPA ensembles.  The following chart details these figures:   According to this information, and average ROPA ensemble music director earns 741% more than a musician earning an average

In yesterday’s article, I wrote about the large discrepancy between the average music director and base musicians.  The following chart lists those discrepancies in detail: Sorry, but this chart will only be available in the Adaptistration Compensation Report publication – coming soon! Keep in mind that these figures are from tax forms filed mostly in

I wasn’t planning to post anything today, but I just ran across this article today in the Adelaide Advertiser about a new software program that allows music students to play along with an orchestra.  For those of us who remember a play along with a recording system called Music Minus one, it seems to be much

They say everything happens in groups of threes, and to help fulfill that adage we have this season’s third brouhaha surrounding dismissal issues for a music director. This time we go to the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra in La Crosse, WI where according to an article by Terry Rindfleisch in the La Crosse Tribune the

In the Sunday, May 23rd edition of the Kansas City Star, music critic Paul Horsley wrote an excellent article entitled Decision Time.  It’s about how orchestras set about selecting a new music director and it focuses on the current music director search being undertaken by the Kansas City Symphony.  It’s a well written article that’s

A frequent reader sent an email pointing out an ambiguity from last Thursday’s article entitled The Downside Of Insufficient Communication.  They pointed out that I failed to mention that the Charleston Symphony orchestra musicians recently accepted a nearly 20% pay cut in order to help keep the orchestra’s finances stable. Although I did refer to