Is Philly Still Competitive? Let's Examine Some Numbers

Among the largest budget orchestras, one of the most competitive issues is the ability to attract and retain the very best talent and perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the primary components in that equation is base wages. So I thought it would be helpful to take a look at what sort of impact the recent Philadelphia Orchestra concessionary agreement has on the big budget orchestra competition landscape.

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Muti Faints During Rehearsal, Slatkin Fills In

In a different time and place, I would have though the press release from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) announcing that music director Riccardo Muti became ill and fainting during Thursday’s rehearsal and Leonard Slatkin was going to fill in was a gag. But sure enough, Muti was ill and taken to a local hospital although all reports seem to indicate that he will be fine. And yes, Slatkin took over the concert…

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Chicago Symphony Musicians Leaflet For Detroit

On 1/20/2011, the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) distributed leaflets before the evening’s concert which expressed support for musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and urged DSO music director Leonard Slatkin to “use his influence to persuade the Board of the DSO to negotiate in a spirit of compromise and respect.”…

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2010 Orchestra Website Review: Best & Worst Of

Wrapping up the US reviews for 2010 is the Best & Worst from this year’s review. The Best recognizes orchestras that made particularly large advancements in certain categories while the Worst examines organizations that could benefit from improving particularly damaging components and/or practices…

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2010 Orchestra Website Review: Special Recognition Awards

During every orchestra website review, several orchestras deserve special recognition for how well they satisfied evaluation requirements as well as demonstrating particular originality and creativity for specific website components, regardless of overall score. As such, the Special Recognition Awards are designed to highlight individual achievements and promote them as benchmarks within the field…

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