Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
Andrew Taylor posted a really provocative piece last week about whether or not the nonprofit industry is “overbuilt”.
His piece really got me thinking. Actually, it made me furious at first, but after a few minutes I started into the thinking part. I wasn’t upset with Andrew; I thought he wrote a great piece that should cause any reasonably level headed individual with at least two active brain cells to think about.
To continue where Part 1 left off, we’ll examine how some of the pension issues related to the Philadelphia Orchestra situation have influenced the course of negotiations. The Philadelphia Orchestra Association (POA) utilizes a defined benefits pension plan. This means the POA and not the individual players assume the risk to ensure that the pension plan has enough funds to make the required payments to retired employees. The POA expands on …
Among the many issues related to contract negotiations, one of the leading subjects is retirement benefits and pension plans in particular. This negotiation season is no different, but pension plans seem to be more of a hot button issue. The reasons are related to the ability of orchestra associations to adequately fund their pension plans as required by their contract with the musicians and Federal regulations. Take the current negotiation underway …
“orchestra musicians’ internal motivation is higher than any of the other groups studied, but their level of general job satisfaction is quite low below that of federal prison guards, in fact, and far below that of members of professional string quartets.” – From a 1994 study by Jutta Allmendinger, Richard Hackman, and Erin V. Lehman. That’s a pretty heavy-duty finding. Most non-players I talk to assume that orchestra musicians love their …
The Louisville Orchestra has seen a bad year. They nearly filled for chapter 7 bankruptcy, but were saved during the 11th hour by a $465,000 pledge by the Home Builders Association of Louisville, contract concessions by the musicians, and fundraising efforts by the board. Since then, orchestra leadership has abandoned ship. Management is currently without an Executive Director, a Director of Development, a Director of Marketing & Public Relations, a Public Relations Manager, an Operations Manager, as well as several staff positions in the development, marketing and education departments.