Musician Issues

Is Now The Time To Revamp The Audition Process?

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Holly Mulcahy published an article at Neo Classical about audition requirements. It serves as a follow-up to something she wrote in 2018 on the topic and spoiler alert: not much has changed for the better. “Over the last four years, the social justice movement has had a positive influence on the way orchestras approach programming while some are producing DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) statements. As we head towards what we think is …

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Musical Left Behind Syndrome

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We’re wading into musician issue territory today by way of an article in the 11/8/21 edition of The Strad by violinist Daniel Kurganov about making it as a professional violinist who started at the age of 16 when many begin a decade or more earlier. I am very lucky to have parents who, while not being professional musicians themselves, trusted my passion through its twists and turns. But for many years, …

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It Isn’t Often You See This Much Potential For Artistic Change

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The 8/3/2021 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published an article by Jeremy Reynolds that takes a deeper than normal look at the 13 openings at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO). 13 simultaneous openings at an orchestra of this budget size that isn’t emerging from a major labor dispute and/or financial implosion is highly unusual. What’s more, five of those are principal level positions and one fixed seat position. 1st violins, three …

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Humanizing The Impact Of The Pandemic On Musicians

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While it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that the pandemic has seen numerous arts administrators and musicians leave the field entirely, it’s one thing to look at it as a statistic and something else entirely to humanize it. To that end, Jeremey Reynolds wrote an excellent article for the 7/22/21 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that examines a cross section of musicians and their decision to stay or leave …

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More On The Dynamic Impact Of COIVD

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Usually, these posts focus on how the pandemic generates dynamic expenses and considerations for the organization but today we’re going to focus on musicians; specifically, string musicians. This dynamic cost consideration is really more of a double-edged sword. On one hand, if a string musician was playing considerably less over the pandemic, the need for regular maintenance items like changing strings or getting bows rehaired has been lower. At the same …

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