Governance

Learn To Love Lobbying

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Adaptistration People 114

There’s a great post over at Butts In The Seats titled Info You Can Use: What Is Lobbying and Can I Do It? which covers some of the basics of lobbying do’s and don’ts (thanks in part to the Charity Lawyer Blog). In the age of government budget cuts, lobbying is more important than ever if orchestras hope to stand an ice cube’s chance in hell to retain funding… In my …

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Just Don’t Call It A Merger

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Last week, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Washington National Opera (WNO) announced that both organizations have adopted a similar relationship that the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) shares with the Kennedy Center. Officially, it is called an affiliation as the WNO retains their independent 501(c)3 status, but in a more practical sense the deal is a straightforward acquisition…

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BOOM Went The Gavel

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It happened so close to the New Year holiday you may have missed it but the decision by Judge David T. Stosberg denying the Louisville Orchestra’s (LO) filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as means for temporary relief from its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is, to put it mildly, a big deal. At the same time, it hardly serves as the final punctuation in the narrative that is the LO’s financial condition…

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How Did We Get Here?

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Guest-Author

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?

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