Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
“orchestra musicians’ internal motivation is higher than any of the other groups studied, but their level of general job satisfaction is quite low below that of federal prison guards, in fact, and far below that of members of professional string quartets.” – From a 1994 study by Jutta Allmendinger, Richard Hackman, and Erin V. Lehman. That’s a pretty heavy-duty finding. Most non-players I talk to assume that orchestra musicians love their …
Just a blurb today, I saw the article in today’s Chicago Sun-Times about the musicians of the Chicago Symphony initiating a vote of confidence on a resolution voicing support for Music Director Daniel Barenboim. I’m thrilled to see the players taking matters into their own hands. It shows what a majority of them feel is most important to their organization and it lets management and the orchestra’s executive board know that …
I read the article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer by Peter Dobrin about how the Philadelphia Orchestra’s executive board approved a $10,000-per-year raise for its president, Joseph H. Kluger. The article went on to state that the pay raise came at a time when the orchestra’s leadership: ” cut compensation for its music director, asked employees to take a week’s unpaid vacation, fired seven employees in a cost-cutting move, and the orchestra …
Arts Journal recently linked to an article in the Washington Post written by Philip Kennicott. The article focuses on Sam Bergman’s Road Trip blog here on Arts Journal that chronicles the recent Minnesota Orchestra’s tour of Europe. If you haven’t read either the Washington Post article or the blog, you should. In Philip’s article, he summarizes one of the core problems with orchestral management in two simple paragraphs (as opposed the …
In January, I wrote a piece about how we can make better musicians for tomorrow by instituting a music business component into the standard music conservatory curriculum. Since that time I contacted the top music conservatories in the US to see if they already had a music business component as part of their required curriculum. I sent an email inquiry to the following conservatories and schools of music that have historically produced …