Compensation Reports

Today we continue to Part 3 of our examination of executive compensation.  We’ll be covering the salaries for executive directors and base musicians for 23 ROPA ensembles. The following chart details these figures:

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According to these figures, an average ROPA executive director earns approximately 644% more than a musician making base salary, that’s 350% more than how much executives make over base players at ICSOM ensembles.  The average ROPA base musician salary is only $1,561 more than the Federal Poverty Level for a household of two.  This is where we begin to walk down a bizarre path.  Why is there such a huge discrepancy between the salary of executives and musicians? 

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To continue where we left off in yesterday’s article, the following chart lists the 2001 annual salaries(excluding benefits, etc.) for executive directors and base musicians for 44 ICSOM ensembles.

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According to these figures, an average orchestra executive director earns approximately 325% more than a musician making base salary.   Now here’s where the data becomes interesting, since these figures represent totals from 2001, they don’t accurately characterize the impact of 9/11 and the softening economy on the financial health of these organizations.  I know that the musicians in at least 24 of these orchestras have accepted pay cuts which lower the base musician salary to approximately $52,047, or -4%, by the end of the 2003-2004 season.  Additionally, at least 21 of these orchestras have either replaced their executive directors or are in the process of replacing them by the end of the 2003-2004 season.

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NPR radio programming is a wonderful source for news and commentary that is otherwise left out by mass media news reporting.  While out driving on Monday, April 5th, I was listening to NPR’s Marketplace.  They conducted an interview with the author of a recent study released by Northeastern University entitled “The Unprecedented Rising Tide of Corporate Profits and the Simultaneous Ebbing of Labor Compensation – Gainers and Losers from the National Economic Recovery in 2002 and 2003.”  During the interview, the study’s author, Andrew Sum said:

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