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Mark Iacona – XRIJF 2012Category: Arts Advocacy
Working Together: Orchestra Musicians, Boards and Management
The Wall Street Journal for Friday, June 7, 2013 carries an article in the “D” Section, “After Orchestras Strike: A Tale of Two Cities” by Terry Teachout. The article compares the ways in which two orchestras – The Minnesota Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony – are dealing with their financial problems. In Minnesota there is
Read More →What Were They Thinking?
What Were They Thinking? For most music students the transition to the professional world does not usually happen abruptly. A switch is not thrown and voila, you’re a pro. The normal course of events involves a period of time when some gigs are well paid , some not-so-well and some not-at-all. It’s these not-so-well and
Read More →Jazz Fights For Justice
Classical music organizations and musicians are not the only ones facing labor disputes, contract negotiations, and pension issues. This recent article from the AFM‘s International Musician tells the story of New York City jazz musicians who are trying to convince jazz clubs to pay into pensions for their retirement. Click here to read the article.
Read More →Baltimore Symphony’s OrchKids 2013 Spring Bash!
I traveled down to Baltimore last week to spend some time with the Baltimore Symphony’s OrchKids program and experience their final concert for this academic year — their Spring Bash. I first observed the OrchKids program, the BSO’s after-school intensive El Sistema program, in 2010 when they were in their second year at the Lockerman-Bundy
Read More →Symphony Magazine, Spring 2013 Issue
The spring issue of Symphony magazine is now available online. As usual, the magazine contains a variety of interesting articles. Chester Lane, Senior Editor at Symphony magazine, presents a fascinating article about the health and wellness programs springing up in orchestras. Many of these programs have been funded by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
Read More →Improving the Orchestra’s Revenue Position: Practical Tactics and General Strategies
My Editor’s Choice for this go-round is from 1997—sixteen years ago. Here’s a little background just to put it in context. Our website, Polyphonic.org is part of the Orchestra Musician Forum, that was created in 2004 when Paul R. Judy made a gift of the financial and intellectual assets of the Symphony Orchestra Institute to
Read More →Yo-Yo Ma’s Address to the Americans for the Arts Summit
On Monday, April 8, 2013, Yo-Yo Ma, along with former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum and Damian Woetzel, former principal dancer at New York City Ballet and the director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program, participated in the Americans for the Arts Summit in Washington DC, discussing the need to develop strong public policies
Read More →A Violinist’s Voyage
Local 802 has again published a fascinating interview of one of its older members by a younger colleague in their monthly magazine, Allegro. Kuan Cheng Lu, who joined the orchestra in 2004, interviewed Newton Mansfield, who joined the orchestra in 1961.
Read More →The Riot Stuff
Orchestras should raise their voices to be heard amid the din of noisy modern culture and promote themselves as socially conscious public institutions. They need to embrace a more inclusive posture in society, and demonstrate an identity more nuanced than silent anonymous conservative tuxedo-clad white male. While the price of participating in American culture
Read More →New York Times Sunday Dialogue: Is Classical Music Dying?
About ten days ago, Les Dreyer, a retired violinist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, had his letter to the editor published in the New York Times. Evidently his writing generated some interest—in fact, enough interest to be featured, along with 12 or so others in “Reader’s Reactions.” Mr. Dreyer’s letter is the focus of this
Read More →Cooking the books
This is a pretty amazing story: For four years, the Minnesota Orchestra board has walked a tightrope between managing public perceptions about its financial health and making its case to cut musicians’ salaries. As early as 2009, board officers were discussing how much money to draw from investments, and the advantage of reporting balanced budgets
Read More →Beyond Prestige
In the American system, the arts are funded mostly through indirect subsidies. Our government’s tax policies toward charitable giving elicit billions of dollars in contributions annually. The beauty of this system is that it not only allows the citizens to determine which not-for-profits benefit a civil society, but also it does not require the government
Read More →Osmo joins the party
It’s been a bad week for the management of the Minnesota Orchestra, and this very public letter from their Music Director was was likely the cherry on the cake: Dear Members of the Minnesota Orchestra Board and the Musicians of the Orchestra: In the last few years, the Minnesota Orchestra has truly established itself as
Read More →What the election tells us about the press
William Goldman, a remarkably prolific screen writer who wrote the screenplays for, among other movies, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and The Princess Bride (which was based on a novel he wrote), began his memoir Adventures in the Screen Trade with a three-word opening sentence. He wrote: “Nobody knows anything”
Read More →Headline of the year
“US composer’s secretary suffers near-fatal beating October 25, 2012 by Norman Lebrecht.” That’s how it showed up in my email. I don’t think that came out quite the way Norman meant it too, though.
Read More →Another day, another conspiracy theory
Except that, of course, it’s the same conspiracy theory, only this time in the hallowed web pages of the Huffington Post: It’s the voodoo. That horrible, Kuru-inducing zombie voodoo. These are heady times for the League of American Orchestras (LAO) and their ilk. True, their suits have grown a tad more maggot-ridden since their early
Read More →My kingdom for a decent news article
ICSOM Chair Bruce Ridge has joined the ranks of those writing about the underlying causes of the current situation in our industry, although of course he is hardly new to the party, having written extensively about the problems in the orchestra business for Senza Sordino over the years. It’s an interesting piece in many respects;
Read More →One Wow and One Uh-Oh
This letter appeared in Saturday’s Minneapolis StarTribune: As former music directors of the Minnesota Orchestra, we came to the state because we believe that it wants and deserves to have a world-class orchestra. We are proud of the cultural gem we have built, with the musicians, for more than half a century. It required long
Read More →Peter Dobrin says it all
This article by Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer is the best reporting on the current crisis yet to appear. Go read the whole thing: …What someone is willing to pay for orchestral musicians in this country has changed radically in recent weeks. Yes, a brief strike last month by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra resulted
Read More →Guest Bloggers: Quartetutopia by Nicholas Kitchen
[Nick Kitchen is the founding first violinist of the Borromeo Quartet, ensemble in residence at NEC. In addition to receiving the Artist Diploma from NEC, the quartet has gone on to win the 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Lincoln Center's … Continue reading →
American Orchestras: Yes, it's a crisis
“I am convinced that if the rate of change within an organization is less than the rate of change outside, the end is near.” – Jack Welch In the last twelve months the Honolulu, Syracuse, and New Mexico Symphonies have … Continue reading →
Was it worth it?
There is a famous (although possibly apocryphal) story about Richard Nixon’s visit to China. Reportedly, Kissinger told Nixon that Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai was a student of the French Revolution. So Nixon asked him, during their first informal meeting, what he thought the impact of the French Revolution on the course of history had
Read More →What Professional Orchestras Should Learn From YouTube
These days, when symphony orchestras make national news, the topic is usually not a happy one. Yet one group has received a very different kind of coverage: the YouTube Symphony Orchestra (YTSO). Culminating in a performance at Australia’s Sydney…
Read More →Twilight in Syracuse
The Syracuse Symphony is shutting down after musicians refused to accept $1.3 million in concessions: The decision will bring the 50th anniversary season of the orchestra to an unceremonious end. There were more than 20 Syracuse and regional concerts remaining in the 2010-11 season. The orchestra’s 18 full- and part-time staffers and 61 core and
Read More →More about community engagement
The most important benefit to our field from the Detroit strike will be the ever-necessary reminder that strikes are a sub-optimal method of resolving labor-management disputes. The next most important benefit will be the jump-starting of the discussion about what’s come to be known as “community engagement.” Whether either of those will be worth the
Read More →Arts Entrepreneurship — Policy Opportunity?
I don’t think anyone would argue that we’re in a period of policy transition in the arts and culture sector. I would even characterize it as the most significant period of policy reexamination since the 1960′s. The difference is huge, of co…
Read More →Orchestras and the union movement
Milwaukee is not quite equidistant from Madison and Detroit, but it does sit precisely on the line between them that a crow (or a Boeing) would fly. So it’s fitting that events in Detroit and Madison resonate so loudly with this member of the Milwaukee Symphony – an orchestra in the Rust Belt that’s had
Read More →The worst is yet to come
If you think that the Detroit Symphony labor dispute has been hard to watch, steel yourselves because the worst is yet to come. If the parties can’t find their way to a settlement in very short order, it will be even harder to watch the orchestra disintegrate. The recent “farewell” posting by the entire DSO
Read More →A substitute orchestra in Detroit?
In a front-page article in the Detroit News, Michael H. Hodges is pessimistic about the future of the DSO: …outsiders warn that suspending the season involves a leap into the unknown, one that not only threatens the orchestra’s current hold on audiences and donors, but could put the 2011-2012 season and the orchestra’s entire future
Read More →Why conductors should STFU
Because otherwise they’re going to say things as dumb as what Leonard Slatkin said today about the DSO strike: …A settlement now would serve both parties well since the DSO’s popular, high-profile music director is the scheduled conductor for next weekend’s concerts. “What’s really cool is that we would be doing Michel Camilo’s Second Piano
Read More →How not to make audiences feel
I know that audiences can be annoying, and clueless, and distracting, and all the rest – but come on, folks: I just have to write a letter concerning the recent performance of the Abilene Philharmonic. Abilenians are a welcoming group who are quick to applaud, and even provide a standing ovation. Yet a beautiful performance
Read More →Tea leaves in Detroit
Two items in Detroit’s newspapers yesterday make me think that things are not going well there. The first was in the Detroit Free Press: Management of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra reiterated today that it would make a new contract offer to its striking musicians this week and would request a response by Feb. 11. Citing
Read More →Cry me a river
It must be that overwhelming wave of affection that greets them when they come to work every day: The sudden death of Jean-Marc Cochereau, the French conductor, has prompted the very readable music writer Norman Lebrecht to issue a warning about the health hazards of conducting. M Cochereau collapsed and died from cardiac arrest on
Read More →Detroit Update 1/23/2011
According to the Detroit Free Press, there were negotiations today: The musicians and management of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra returned to the bargaining table this afternoon to try to settle the contentious strike that enters its 17th week on Monday. DSO board members received an e-mail from management today saying that talks had resumed, said
Read More →More Detroit
The war of words heated up during the time I was writing the previous post: Musicians’ spokesman Greg Bowens disputed the $40.1 million figure, saying, “That must be another example of the fuzzy math that got the orchestra into the deficits it’s in now.”… Bowens declined to address most other issues in management’s Saturday morning
Read More →Are we figments of Mahler's imagination?
Norman thinks that Mahler invented the American symphony orchestra. He makes a good case: Mahler split the Carnegie season into four subscription blocs, each with a thematic base, something no conductor had tried before. As well as a Regular Series, he put in a Beethoven cycle “for the education of lovers of classical music, for
Read More →An orchestra of 300 million
Last Saturday I was on my way to New York, which in practice is pretty much an all-day business. So I saw almost nothing about the Tucson shootings until I heard about them during the League seminar I was helping out with on Sunday. What I heard then caught me off-guard; apparently one of the
Read More →Movement in Detroit?
Maybe: The striking musicians and management of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra traded barbs and accusations on today while a settlement to the 15-week-old strike remained elusive — even as management appeared to sweeten its offer for the first time since November. The musicians called a news conference to accuse management of threatening to cancel the
Read More →The kid stays on the podium
There’s something about conducting this kid really gets, although he really should have turned the last page of the score before he thought the piece was over: Wouldn’t it be nice if more kids this age thought Beethoven was this much fun? And why don’t they, anyway? I wonder what would happen if kids treated
Read More →Why orchestra management is hard
Joseph Horowitz doubled down on his remarks about musician compensation in a later blog post (analyzed by Drew McManus here): If I sound unsympathetic to the musicians, it’s because I’ve heard one too many times the strident union litany blaming ignorant boards and incompetent managers. Running an orchestra is a thankless task. I’ve done it.
Read More →The moralistic approach to orchestra scheduling
Interlochen Public Radio did a piece yesterday on the DSO strike; in particular the service conversion proposals that management has put on the table. The whole thing is worth reading. But I was particularly struck by comments made by Joseph Horowitz: …there are those in the industry who argue this discussion is way overdue. Joe
Read More →The price was right
One of the most damaging misconceptions about orchestras is that we raise money because we don’t make enough on ticket sales to cover the total expense of the concerts. The reality is very little of the fixed expenses of orchestras is covered by ticket sales, which typically cover, at most, the marginal expenses of putting
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