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?
Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste
I arrived at my new job on June 1, 2008, ready to delve into the standard industry-wide issues plaguing Orchestra Iowa: plummeting ticket sales, strained relations with the musicians, immense debt, and no cash to pay bills. Although I had spent several months before my arrival creating a first year outline, that plan literally got washed down the river when two weeks into my tenure, downtown Cedar Rapids, including the Symphony’s office and performance home, was destroyed by massive floods.
Building Concert Halls, Part 3: How to ensure success
In contrast to the “outside in approach” discussed in my last installment, great concert hall design starts with accommodating the essential requirements of both performers and audience, then moving outward in its architectural expression for support areas and public spaces….an “inside out approach”. There is an old expression: “form follows function” which today’s designers of concert halls and theaters would do well to return to their philosophy. And this concept can …
Building Concert Halls, Part 2: Well-worn paths to failure
Performing arts venues are built for a variety of reasons, artistic, social, and political. Their operational success can often be predicted by how these reasons are prioritized. Halls built primarily for political reasons such as prestige and civic pride sometimes overlook basic needs and desires of performers and audiences in favor of some grand architectural monument representing civic identity. These are the halls I sometimes describe as being built from the …
Building Concert Halls, Part 1: What makes a great concert hall?
In 2002 my company, Akustiks, was hired to design a new concert hall for the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra had been playing for many years in a large multi-purpose theater under the direction of Maestro Kenneth Schermerhorn. Increasing difficulties in scheduling the theater to accommodate what was becoming a full-time orchestra in part led to the realization that if the orchestra was to reach its potential, a new home would …