On December 13 and 20, 2010, Detroit’s WRCJ 90.9 FM broadcast interviews with Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) Executive Director, Anne Parsons, and DSO musician spokesperson and cellist, Haden McKay. Program host, Chris Felcyn, set the tone by asking a single, straightforward question: “If you had a magic wand that could bring a settlement to this strike, please describe your vision of what the post-strike orchestra would look like.”
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Back In The Saddle
I’m back from Nepal but enduring a nasty flu strain I picked up toward the end of the trip. As such, today’s post will be brief but I wanted to take a moment to examine one of the more critical Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) developments that transpired while I was away…
Home For The Holidays
I’m heading home today from Nepal and although I’m looking forward to getting back to Chicago, there’s no way to deny that working with the Unatti House and surrounding Bhaktapur children was an emotionally fulfilling experience. Clearly, there is ample need and opportunity for the HEARTbeats Foundation to implement an ongoing and sustainable program to continue working with these children…
I’d Like To A/B That!
Philanthropy.com published an article on 12/10/2010 by Raymund Flandez that reports nonprofit orgs raise more money directly through their own websites as opposed to third party portals. At the same time, the article indicates that donation pages and shopping carts managed by a third party provider that maintain the organization’s branding and/or display the name prominently are just as effective…
How Did We Get Here?
In a recent post, Drew highlights a remark by author Joseph Horowitz suggesting that musicians should no longer expect that orchestras owe them a living wage, i.e., a full-time salary. I thought I would use my brief stint as a guest blogger to elaborate on some of the history that led us to today’s paradigm of full-time orchestral employment. Was the transformation from 1958 when a bare handful of orchestras paid a modest middle-class wage to today’s 50+ full-time orchestras an accident of history caused by the nexus of profligate national foundations and a greedy musicians’ union, or is there more to the story?