American symphony orchestras: talent vs management - my take

[Donn]

From a distance, it seems like at least some symphony orchestra musicians are people with extraordinary talents and abilities, and very difficult personalities. Not sure I'd jump at the chance to involve myself with those people in a collective business enterprise.

Some years back, when sought-after, high paid computer programmers was a relatively new thing here, the subject came up in a rehearsal and the old curmudgeonly tuba/bass player in charge said something to the effect of "I hope they work the rest of their lives, they deserve it." I was doing some computer programming myself at the time, so I appreciated that, until I realized he meant it as a curse.

[Michael Bush]

there might be some highly-capable person in the orchestra (as some people actually know how play the drums AND do some other things

Nevertheless, the musicians themselves will always have within their ranks of 60 - 75 someone seeking extra income who has the ability to do that type of work

The Greenville Symphony actually did elect such a person their executive director a couple or three years ago. Unfortunately he passed away before he had been doing it very long.

[Michael Bush]

*with, again, the music director being an ~employee~ of the non-profit which is musician-controlled...yes: with a board of directors, but all orchestra-musicians appointed - possibly with several of the board members being actual orchestra personnel - and with all board members subject to (again) being able to be ousted by "no confidence" votes

Who, in your view, would be the fiduciaries of this organization?

[Michael Bush]

The number of people desiring to spend several hours attending a concert, as well as the number of people ready to donate the money to keep these organizations running must be decreasing to an extent.

And if anyone wanted to come up with a way to make this situation look like the good old days of private philanthropic funding, it would be hard to do better than to make the donors' voice in governance subject to the political will of a majority of the people whose livelihoods they are partly funding.

[anonymous4]

You had me at "paid perennial all-state band"

[imperialbari]

Isn’t the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra run pretty much like bloke suggests?

I am not up and running on their current elected leadership, but I remember reports on one of the percussion players doing management work. And their chairman being a 5th or 6th desk 2nd violinist.

Of course the VPO is not a full time employment orchestra. Rather it is made up of players, who have proven themselves good enough to join through their day jobs as musicians in the Vienna State Opera.

At least through the Karajan era the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra ran the recording part of their business under a similar system,

Klaus

[Michael Bush]

Could be, Klaus. I notice two things about their organization that seem telling to me. One is that the government Minister of Finance is a member of their board. And another is that there do not seem to be any staff fundraisers (which is not surprising). I think it's just a different funding model and a different relationship with the government than American orchestras have or can have.

[imperialbari]

Could be, Klaus. I notice two things about their organization that seem telling to me. One is that the government Minister of Finance is a member of their board. And another is that there do not seem to be any staff fundraisers (which is not surprising). I think it's just a different funding model and a different relationship with the government than American orchestras have or can have.

You could say that the Austrian state backs the VPO by employing its players full time in their opera orchestra. Which would warrant a minister sitting at the VPO board. According to the German Wikipedia articlenon the VPO the gain for the opera is about their musicians getting even better (and more versatile) by attending additional rehearsals on top of those done at the opera.

The day to day business is done by a committee of 12 musicians elected for four years. This work includes organizing ticket sales and the opera ball.

[barry grrr-ero]

This is a good string of posts. I think that there's another factor that makes it difficult for the middle to highly paid orchestras: many people would rather hear a 'lessor' quality orchestra that is closer to their home, than to drive into town and have to deal with traffic, parking, expensive food, panhandlers, gang-bangers, pretentious 'look at me!' rich people (or want-to-be's), etc. With the surplus of musicians, there are now tons of decent community orchestras, community bands (or 'wind ensembles'), local chamber concerts, college or university groups, etc. In short, there's probably a lot more competition than in earlier decades, and much of that competition is performing for little or no pay. This is why I think 'the majors' need to do more 'out reach' into burbs and - possibly - borderline urban areas. They also need very strong endowments since ticket sales alone can't begin to cut it. Just one person's opinion. Good luck to everybody.

Barry Guerrero
_________________
VMI Neptune rotary CC; larger leader-pipe; 3 different really good mouthpieces; Cronkhite leather gig bag = net loss in income and trips to the Chiro.

( but I wouldn't change it - I've always wanted to play a 6/4 CC)

[doublebuzzing]

Tubists are getting away with highway robbery getting the same pay as any of the string players in Dvorak 9.

[imperialbari]

On a tangent:

The one time I have played Brahms 2nd symphony, as 2nd horn, it was from an American edition that the horn section found odd. All the 4 parts were transposed to horns in F despite the original pitches of D, E, B natural, C, and likely one or two more pitches that I don’t remember.

All of us actually could transpose and were used to the original notation style that make tonality patterns very clear at the first glance.

The English born 3rd horn player knew the story.

American horn players had demanded an add-on fee for doing transposed parts. not written for horn in F. The American orchestras had refused, because they feared violin players then would demand a fee for playing many more notes than any of the other parts, so the orchestras had asked editors to issue horn parts transposed to F horns.

Further out on that tangent:

A very talented violin player of my generation wanted an orchestral position to secure a family living, even if his main interest was the less secure market of high end specialized chamber music.

He won a seat in the 2nd violin section in our opera orchestra, which back then did a lot of Mozart operas. But he came to hate the Mozart secundo parts with their extensive right arm work of shifting between strings between every note in the 16th-note arpegiatos. So he asked to be moved to the viola section next time they had an open spot.

Klaus

[Donn]

anticipated possible responses to this post: "yeah, but..." (yeah, but ...what?)

Always one step ahead of us.

[swillafew]

I joined the board of an all volunteer orchestra with a paid music director and two part time staffers. The concerts are held in a rented hall at the local college, and the ticket prices are moderate. Even when the musicians work for nothing, the money is very tight.

The musicians play very well under the circumstances. The patrons love it, almost 1 percent of the population.

[royjohn]

bloke wrote:

I seriously doubt that there are many (with thirty services or so) who will gross over $3K from playing in that orchestra this year.

bloke, are you sure you have the math right? That would be $100 per service, and that doesn't include any rehearsal...

As an aside, when you can be as cogent, eloquent and intelligent as you are in this thread, why is it necessary to resort regularly to photos of outhouses, menus and beer waitresses?

[Mark]

bloke wrote:

I seriously doubt that there are many (with thirty services or so) who will gross over $3K from playing in that orchestra this year.

bloke, are you sure you have the math right? That would be $100 per service, and that doesn't include any rehearsal...

As an aside, when you can be as cogent, eloquent and intelligent as you are in this thread, why is it necessary to resort regularly to photos of outhouses, menus and beer waitresses?

A rehearsal is a service and, even though I don't know how bloke does math, 30 services x $100 per service = $3,000.

[Three Valves]

...why is it necessary to resort regularly to photos of outhouses, menus and beer waitresses?

Where?? Where??

[Mark]

... why is it necessary to resort to photos of ... beer waitresses?

How dare you? They are maidens, beer maidens.

[royjohn]

bloke,
It's not the humor I object to, it's the disrespect. Humor is great, but when people are having a serious discussion and you come in with outhouses and fart noises, I think it's demeaning of others.

[royjohn]

bloke,
I'm well aware that you apparently view some of mine and others' posts as ridiculous and respond with derision. Perhaps I view some of yours as ridiculous, too, perhaps not. Pardon me for stating the obvious, but folks, including you, will say and do things on line in a forum which I doubt that they would do in person. I just think it's sad that someone so knowledgeable and respected in so many ways would need to go this route.

I'm not averse to humor and have found some of yours funny, but not when it's used to put down other folks' opinions. And I don't feel status within this community confers any immunity in this regard.

[Three Valves]

...Fortunately, *I think he likes me...irreverence included ).

It's all part of the great big lovable package!!