It's a jungle out there...
OK, so I'm bouncing off of a comment from Sam's recent post about Blair Tindall's very entertaining "Mozart in the Jungle".
Before I get to responding to the commentary about "overfunding" arts organizations, many readers of Tindall's tome have expressed anything from mild surprise to outright shock regarding the more intimate details of Tindall's social life. While she makes clear that these are her own personal experiences and not the general modus operandi of working musicians, she does paint a rather unflattering picture of many New York orchestral musicians drowning in booze, dabbling (or more) in hard drugs and engaging in frolicsome sex lives (apparently mostly of the extramarital variety). To those who are terribly surprised by this, all I can say is, while we may look so dignified, formal and disciplined onstage, classical musicians are people too, prone to the same temptation and indulgence as anyone else, if not more so (hey, it's the artistic temperament). Sex, drugs, and Rachy 2, right??
Now, for the serious stuff. I tend to agree with Sam's response that arts organizations are neither overabundant nor overfunded. As for overabundance, I would point out that, for instance, there is only one 52-week opera house in the United States (the Met) - compare that to, say, Germany, with over 80 year-round houses, and one only begins to scratch the surface of the paucity of classical music organizations in this country. Budgetary issues of orchestras in this country are not surprising; they are costly ventures that, in all other parts of the world, are supported in most part by government subsidies and national funding. US orchestras have no such systematic and traditional support (and we in the orchestra business, I feel, tend to be unnecessarily apologetic about the necessity of this kind of backing - another great topic for a later post).
And I would, like Sam, argue that a great deal of this issue lies in performing arts administration - mostly, I think, because it is essentially still in its nascence (relatively speaking). One must consider that it was really post World War II when many of the big orchestras we know now expanded their seasons to become truly full-time, and the real flowering of arts organizations began in the late 50's and 60's. This is essentially a very new business, still (particularly in the smaller markets) run by boards and administrators who have little or no experience in the field (much less training specific to this particular type of non-profit organization.) Much of the music we play has been around for centuries. But the business of running an orchestra in this country? Merely decades.
As for the inflated salaries of superstar soloists and conductors, it could be argued that they can be excessive - again, a whole other topic for another time. And I'm not sure that Tindall's assertion is necessarily that this is the cause of suppressed salaries for working musicians, because it really makes a difference just which working musicians you are talking about - have you seen what some orchestral players make, particularly in the top 10 orchestras in this country? As my own little aside, I think the greater imbalance lies in the discrepancy in orchestra salaries, particularly when one considers this; say that East Coast Orchestra P, with a 52 week season (and 10 weeks paid vacation - so, 42 weeks of work) pays upwards of $110K as its base salary, and that East Coast Orchestra R, with a 38 week season (no paid vacation, about 86% the number of total performances as Orchestra P) offers a base salary in the mid $20Ks. Hierarchies and inequity can be found everywhere...
Before I get to responding to the commentary about "overfunding" arts organizations, many readers of Tindall's tome have expressed anything from mild surprise to outright shock regarding the more intimate details of Tindall's social life. While she makes clear that these are her own personal experiences and not the general modus operandi of working musicians, she does paint a rather unflattering picture of many New York orchestral musicians drowning in booze, dabbling (or more) in hard drugs and engaging in frolicsome sex lives (apparently mostly of the extramarital variety). To those who are terribly surprised by this, all I can say is, while we may look so dignified, formal and disciplined onstage, classical musicians are people too, prone to the same temptation and indulgence as anyone else, if not more so (hey, it's the artistic temperament). Sex, drugs, and Rachy 2, right??
Now, for the serious stuff. I tend to agree with Sam's response that arts organizations are neither overabundant nor overfunded. As for overabundance, I would point out that, for instance, there is only one 52-week opera house in the United States (the Met) - compare that to, say, Germany, with over 80 year-round houses, and one only begins to scratch the surface of the paucity of classical music organizations in this country. Budgetary issues of orchestras in this country are not surprising; they are costly ventures that, in all other parts of the world, are supported in most part by government subsidies and national funding. US orchestras have no such systematic and traditional support (and we in the orchestra business, I feel, tend to be unnecessarily apologetic about the necessity of this kind of backing - another great topic for a later post).
And I would, like Sam, argue that a great deal of this issue lies in performing arts administration - mostly, I think, because it is essentially still in its nascence (relatively speaking). One must consider that it was really post World War II when many of the big orchestras we know now expanded their seasons to become truly full-time, and the real flowering of arts organizations began in the late 50's and 60's. This is essentially a very new business, still (particularly in the smaller markets) run by boards and administrators who have little or no experience in the field (much less training specific to this particular type of non-profit organization.) Much of the music we play has been around for centuries. But the business of running an orchestra in this country? Merely decades.
As for the inflated salaries of superstar soloists and conductors, it could be argued that they can be excessive - again, a whole other topic for another time. And I'm not sure that Tindall's assertion is necessarily that this is the cause of suppressed salaries for working musicians, because it really makes a difference just which working musicians you are talking about - have you seen what some orchestral players make, particularly in the top 10 orchestras in this country? As my own little aside, I think the greater imbalance lies in the discrepancy in orchestra salaries, particularly when one considers this; say that East Coast Orchestra P, with a 52 week season (and 10 weeks paid vacation - so, 42 weeks of work) pays upwards of $110K as its base salary, and that East Coast Orchestra R, with a 38 week season (no paid vacation, about 86% the number of total performances as Orchestra P) offers a base salary in the mid $20Ks. Hierarchies and inequity can be found everywhere...
Labels: the business of music
posted by Sarah at
3:57 PM
4 Comments:
I'd like to point out comments I've made following the link to Sam's post, that Sarah has underlined at the top of her post. Sam has described me as a sloppy, inaccurate reporter, citing a New York Times preview in 2004 of the orchestra's February concert at Carnegie. Sam writes that he has based his impressions of me on "glaring factual errors" in the article.
I did not write the article he references. It was written by NYC Opera dramaturg Cori Ellison. The only pieces I wrote for the New York Times in 2004 were one on beta blockers, and another on salaries of orchestra CEOs and conductors. The latter required sifting through some 300 tax returns to gather and analyze figures. We received no complaints of inaccuracy or error on this deeply complex investigative story.
Ms. Tindall is absolutely right. Please see the correction I've appended to the original post below...
I would like to point out that many of the major performing arts organizations are run by individuals with decades of experience doing so. In addition, many of us on the administrative side of orchestra management have advanced degrees in nonprofit management and public administration. The orchestra management field is not as "new" as one might believe.
There are certainly many qualified and experienced individuals running major performing arts organizations. And thanks to programs such as the League of American Symphony Orchestra's Orchestra Management Fellowship Program, there is guidance not only in nonprofit management but specifically in orchestral management. However, I will still say this; the League's program is 27 years old, and the first university-based generic nonprofit management degree programs date from the early 1980s. This is only a little over a generation ago. I stand by my assertion that this is not a great deal of time - and that performing arts administration is still very much in an emerging stage.
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