Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
The recent Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) strike is an excellent example of something that demonstrates how much the work stoppage PR landscape has shifted over the past decade. For example, one of the strongest musician talking points is the deleterious impact concessions have on an orchestra’s ability to attract and retain the very best artistic talent. This was a cornerstone of the CSO musician position: If the employer does away with …
After a few days of heavy-duty posts, it’s time to lighten the mood a bit, and what better way than visiting some of the latest tweets from two of my favorite cathartic watering holes. Can we just change the mission statement of the orchestra to: "continuing the tradition of playing white male composers for decades to come" — Shit Orchestra Musicians Say (@OrchestraSay) April 29, 2019 Even though it went through …
One item that remains unclear in the new Chicago Symphony Orchestra agreement is whether the new fiver-year contract modified any of the terms related to substitute musician compensation. I’ve been communicating with both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) and the musicians and so far, have received mildly differing accounts. According to CSOA Communications and Public Relations Officer, Eileen Chambers “per the terms of the new agreement, temporary or substitute musicians will …
On Saturday, 4/27/2019 the board of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) and the CSO musicians ratified a new five-year collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The deal was reached shortly after outgoing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel became directly involved. Let’s take a close look at the new terms to see what each stakeholder managed to secure. Pension In a nutshell: the employer scored a big win on this term while the musicians …
Recently, my company updated my wife’s professional artist website: HollyMulcahy.com. A large part of that project was updating all her press kit information. Previously, all the typical press kit content, such as bios and pics, was available via direct download from her site. But times have changed and there are better ways to go about making that content available. Ultimately, the goal is to make things as easy as possible for …