Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house. I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why. In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu. For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

2020 Orchestra Compensation Reports: The Big Picture

by

Each year, one of the most popular items in the orchestra compensation reports is a big picture overview of all compensation alongside Total Expenditure figures. If you’ve been looking for something that shows all the report values in a single chart, this is your article. Did you know? Direct links to most of the orchestra’s financial disclosure documents at guidestar.org are available in the Orchestra Financial Reports or you can save yourself dozens of …

Read more

2020 Orchestra Compensation Reports: Concertmasters

by

For the third year in a row, the 2017/18 season produced a positive gain in the average concertmaster’s compensation level. Having said that, and not counting years with negative growth, this was the third smallest average increase since the 99/00 season. The Information In order to provide information that is as accurate as possible, info from the 2017/18 season is gathered from the following source: Concertmaster compensation figures were obtained from their respective …

Read more

2020 Orchestra Compensation Reports: Music Directors

by

If you were a music director during the 2017/18 season, there’s a good chance you had six hundred and forty-five thousand or so good reasons to say it was an exceptional year. One conductor managed to have more than three million good reasons. The Information In order to provide information that is as accurate as possible, info from the 2017/18 season is gathered from the following sources: Music Director compensation figures were obtained …

Read more

2020 Orchestra Compensation Reports: Executives

by

When it comes to executive compensation, the 2017/18 season saw a sharp uptick in skewed averages since we started tracking numbers thanks to an all-time high number of CEO vacancies and interim appointments. These occurred across the entire budget spectrum but most notably, three of the usual suspects in the Top 10 earners were between executives. As a result, the average change in compensation was artificially low. The Information In order to …

Read more

State Of Employment Poll & Review June 29 – July 5

by

It may be Orchestra Compensation Reports week but that doesn’t mean we’re taking a break from tracking the employment status of orchestra administrators and musicians. Weekly Report Administrators continued to experience steady response ratios. Only a third indicate working or being paid at their regular full time or pat time status while the other third are working at reduced hours and pay. the remaining third have either been furloughed, laid-off, or …

Read more