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For those of you who play in orchestras professionally, are you paid as a principal player, or as a section player?

Thanks!

It might also be helpful to find out what kind of orchestra (how many services).

Perhaps a more interesting question: Are tuba players principled?

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An asterisk and a hearty hand-clasp is more likely...

circusboy wrote:Perhaps a more interesting question: Are tuba players principled?

I think we all KNOW the answer to that question! : )

Mark Finley wrote:I'm not listed as a principal nor do I get principal pay (unless we have two tubas on a concert)

We only do 6 concerts a year though.

My local orchestra is down to 3 full orchestra concerts this coming season. They have some chamber stuff, but only 3 real concerts. They have gotten into promoting bluegrass concerts, which seems to be a strange twist for a symphony, but I guess they make money off of them.

I fought a 20 year battle with my European orchestra (+300 services a year) about this. They were convinced I was a tutti player(!), while I tried to convince them that playing solos and determining all tuba-related matters entitled me to principal pay. The union was no help with this. It finally came to threat of a lawsuit, and management finally came across with principal pay.

UncleBeer wrote:They were convinced I was a tutti player(!)

I had to convince the Usual Ignoramuses that I was not ONLY tutti but also frutti!!



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Anybody else care to weigh in?

Principal

I am a salaried player. I actually play about 120 services a season, over a 38 week season. I am fairly busy with this job. I also teach and freelance a lot.

Just checking to see if anyone else would like to add their $0.02...

I have only ever heard of one orchestra with a full-time tuba chair where it was not paid the higher rate of Principal.

This is an important question. An additional one to consider is that of contracted principal/over-scale salary versus negotiated over-scale.
In my orchestra, the tuba position is principal, with a contracted overscale. In other orchestras, where contracted principal is not stated an amount or percentage, it is usually up to the individual principal players to negotiate any and all over scale. Obviously in this case, different principal instruments have more or less leverage.

An important distinction between the two, at least in Canada, is that the total amount of contracted overscale qualifies for pension contributions, while negotiated over-scale does not.

These are the kinds of details that most of us don’t learn in school, but it’s maybe a helpful discussion. For those of us who are fortunate enough to win auditions and land contracted positions, I think it's good to know what you can expect from your contract, and how to potentially influence those in the future.

Absolutely. I was on the union negotiating committee of one of my orchestras 3 years ago (very fascinating!), and it was already assumed and never questioned.