Seattle Symphony – Adaptistration

More Under The Heading “Not Everyone Is Cancelling”

Friday, August 7th, 2020 by Drew McManus

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO) recently announced plans to begin performing live concerts via streaming platform as a cornerstone of 20/21 activity. If their county government engages Phase 4 of their reopening strategy during the season, they plan on introducing in-person audience live concerts. According to the SSO’s press statement, streamed performances will include guest artists although none were named. Programs will feature onstage performances with socially distanced Seattle Symphony musicians …

Thinking Outside The Piggy Bank

Tuesday, March 19th, 2019 by Drew McManus

Just a quick post today as I’m still playing catch-up after being away for part of last week. Fortunately, quick doesn’t mean insignificant as the topic I want to toss out is related to pensions. In light of the ongoing Chicago Symphony Orchestra work stoppage that hinges on the orchestra’s pension plan, I wanted to point out there is an alternative to traditional defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans: the …

Leading By Example In Seattle

Thursday, February 9th, 2017 by Drew McManus

We’re going to do something out of the ordinary today in that this will be a purely promotional post. Specifically, I want to draw attention to the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s (SSO) Music Beyond Borders: Voices from the Seven concert that took place on 2/8/2017. The concert is unique and worth special attention for a few key reasons: It tackles the high profile political issue of the immigrant ban head-on by programming …

Broadening The Perspective On Equal Pay For Equal Work

Tuesday, January 27th, 2015 by Drew McManus

When we started examining the topic of equal pay for equal work as applied to substitute orchestra musicians, otherwise known as parity, we compared the parity rate at US and Canadian orchestras in an article from 2/26/2014. At that time, just over two thirds of Canadian symphonic orchestras maintained parity, which was twice the rate of US ensembles. Unfortunately, I left out one important variable in that examination, the only professional …

Hey, Some Good News Without Any Prerequisite Drama

Wednesday, October 18th, 2017Thursday, September 18th, 2014 by Drew McManus

The 9/15/2014 edition of The Seattle Times published an article by Nicole Brodeur that reports the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO) not only raised $600,000 at its recent gala but also garnered a $10 million gift from Rebecca Benaroya. Yes, the Minnesota Orchestra recently announced a $10 million gift too but Seattle managed to snag theirs without having to first thrust the organization into chaos. Even though the organization came rather close …