Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
After reading the article from Monday, March 21st, Cleveland Orchestra musician, Henry Peyrebrune, took the time to share an interesting observation about what he read from the article regarding how (in 1918) the BSO management allegedly offered their musicians a $250 bonus to prevent unionizing, “Another aspect of this story is that the BSO founder, Henry Lee Higginson, decided that in order to ensure the BSO hired and kept the best …
In order to round out this series of articles about the uniquely special grand concert in St. Louis on March 13th, 2005 it seems fitting to allow the last voice to come from those who participated in the event as patrons. If you missed the earlier installments, here are Part 1 and Part 2. Karen Coulter, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Patron My friend, Mary Parks, told me about the concert and …
Or, that’s how the story went back in the October, 1918 edition of The Etude, A monthly journal for the musician, the music student, and all music lovers. In “The World of Music” column, the journal ran the following bit about labor issues at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, It was reported a few months ago that the Boston Symphony Orchestra (the only large organization of the kind which has remained non-union) …
The Partial Observer published an article of mine today which examines the media industry and how it’s been adapting to fundamental changes in its business. There are some intriguing parallels between that business and orchestras: http://www.partialobserver.com/ArticleDisplay.cfm?ArticleID=1424 I had a fantastic time in St. Louis, the free concert was a HUGE success on a variety of different levels. I’ll begin publishing some articles about those effects tomorrow.
Part 2 of this series included examining the goals for developing a system whereby the musicians in any given orchestra can maintain an ongoing active participation in organizational affairs without that work overloading their artistic responsibilities. One astute reader wrote in with a wonderfully concise summary of the goals: “The ultimate goal seems to be to give the musicians and their negotiating committees better information in real time, so they don’t …