Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
As a follow-up to the 5/20/19 article about whether orchestra music librarians should be in the collective bargaining agreement, I want to reach way back to something written by the late Leonard Leibowitz in 2002. If you aren’t already familiar with Len’s work, he was a fundamental force inside the world of nonprofit performing arts labor law specializing on the employee side of the equation. You’ll find him referenced and quoted …
It’s time to revisit base musician compensation levels at the top eight highest paying orchestras. For a number of these orchestras, the 2018/19 season marks the end of their existing collective bargaining agreement (CBA). In each of those instances, the outcomes will have a large impact on what many orchestra musicians consider their organization’s ability to compete for the best on-stage talent. We’ve been tracking these values since the 2009/10 season …
Now that we have the settlement numbers from Chicago, Cleveland, Philly, and San Francisco, we’re just about ready to see how all of those figures impact the overall standings among the top eight highest paying orchestras. That article comes out tomorrow so today is an ideal time to take a look back at where things were when we last examined this issue in May, 2018. Top-Tier Musician Compensation 2018
In 2014, we took a deep dive into which International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) symphonic orchestras paid substitute musicians the same rate as core musicians and in the wake of a recent conversation with ICSOM chairperson Meredith Snow and ICSOM President Paul Austin, it’s time to update that list. My thanks to Paul Austin for spearheading this effort and providing ICSOM’s list of changes. As with most comparative …
I am all kinds of happy to see Frank Almond is back up and running with his non divisi blog. He published the first new post-hiatus article on March 21, 2019 and it touches on a topic that deserves as much attention as possible: improving the academic landscape for emerging musicians. Basics Be sure to sign up for Frank’s new email subscription as well (even if you were subscribed to the …