COVID-19

If You Haven’t Completed The Employment Status Update Survey, Please Do

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The initial responses to last week’s survey asking orchestra managers who lost their position over pandemic shutdowns to provide an update on their employment status has been both sobering and revealing. So far, the vast majority of respondents have yet to find a replacement position and a few respondents have been kind enough to provide useful details about their situation. For example, one manager indicated that while they were initial laid …

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Updating The Employment Status For Displaced Orchestra Administrators

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Back in September, we examined five months of data that measured the employment status of orchestra stakeholders. By the end of the that time, just over half of administrators were unemployed, with 31 percent indicating they were underemployed and only 17 percent were fully employed. I wanted to take a moment to gather some data on administrators that indicated being unemployed. Specifically, I think it’s important to discover how many remain …

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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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The Lyric Opera Of Chicago Fires the First Shot In A Labor War

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The latest entry in the round of COVID triggered labor disputes is from The Lyric Opera of Chicago. The organization released a 14:38 video that says it is intended for company members that features General Director, Anthony Freud, and Board Chair, Sylvia Neil. I say intended because it really seems designed more for donors and patrons as the duo spend the entire time talking about how bad of shape the organization …

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Crowdsourcing Mask Knowledge

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In a perfect world, musicians would have ample time to try a variety of face masks in order to find options that provide maximum safety and comfort. Having said that, things are far from perfect and the cost of buying a few dozen masks is an expense most musicians aren’t in a position to absorb. Consequently, it’s been fascinating watching musicians connect across social media to share experiences. For example, this …

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