Even Marathons Have To End

Good news in Phoenix as the Arizona Opera Company and the Arizona Opera Orchestra Musicians’ Association reached a tentative agreement on Sunday, 3/9/2008. The 12 month long negotiation reached a critical point last month when both sides approved a side letter to the agreement which guarantees the Arizona Opera Orchestra Musicians right of first refusal for all productions through the 2011/12 season. The first two years in the three year contract …

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Are You Suffering From Trombone Envy?

Holly Mulcahy posted what I thought was a fascinating article last week at The Partial Observer which examines how even professional orchestra musicians are sometimes unaware of the occupational pitfalls of their musician colleagues. The gist of the article is that a little knowledge goes a long way toward improved understanding and job satisfaction and that made me think about two specific issues…

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A Marathon Negotiation In Phoenix

How appealing does a 12 month long collective bargaining agreement negotiation sound? Probably not that appealing but that is precisely where the Arizona Opera Company and the Arizona Opera Orchestra Musicians’ Association are. The organization has been operating for the 2007/08 season without a contract and, until recently, was approaching a labor stoppage that threatened March performances of Mozart’s The Magic Flute

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New Features At Adaptistration

This week has ushered in some design and content enhancements at Adaptistration that are worth taking a moment to mention although judging by email messages, many readers have already noticed. They include comment feeds, social networking shortcut links, an eleven language translation tool, and refined contextual advertising tools…

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Google Keeps Rolling Out The Goodies

In one of their latest efforts to colonize all of cyberspace, or at least whatever Microsoft can’t hide, Google has created an easy-to-use and highly effective customizable search tool. In particular, the new tool allows registered Google users to create a search box capable of:

  • Including one website, multiple websites, or specific webpages
  • Host the search box and results on your own website
  • Customize the colors and branding to match your existing webpages

Each one of these features is useful for standard orchestra websites and even more valuable for those sites which are becoming more complex and dynamic. Let’s examine each of the features individually…

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