Ask An Expert: Musicians Run Amok!

It's not often that one Ask an Expert question leads immediately to another, but I thought one of the comments left on our last question about section leaders was worth its own post:

Q: Orchestra positions are tenured?? So once you're in, you basically have to run amok to be out?

Well, it's not quite that rock solid a deal. Basically, the tenure system in orchestras was evolved to replace the system that was in place in many orchestras during the first half of the 20th century, under which conductors had omnipotent hiring and firing authority, and were sometimes known to dump one musician in order to bring in a crony, or a girlfriend, or a relative, or whatever. Since the musicians had little to no employment protection, they would usually just have to accept the nepotism and find another gig. Musicians also had no real recourse against a conductor who claimed they weren't living up to his musical standards, even if the real reason for dismissal was something far more personal.

These days, in most major orchestras, hiring and firing is still largely the job of the music director - even though we have audition committees, the committee is, in the end, serving in an advisory capacity to the MD - but there are a lot more rules governing the process. The rules differ slightly from orchestra to orchestra, but basically follow the same formula across the US.

Here in Minneapolis, every new hire is considered to be on probation for the first two years of employment, during which time s/he will have several meetings with the music director and his/her section leaders to assess progress and identify any musical concerns. (In other words, no fair firing someone for an ostensibly musical reason after a year or two if they've never been told there was a problem and given a chance to at least try to correct it.) Six months before the end of the probationary period, the player's section, audition committee, and the music director meet to decide whether the player will be granted tenure, have their probation extended for an additional year, or be dismissed from the orchestra. These are the only three options. A non-tenured player cannot remain with the orchestra after his/her probation expires.

Once you have tenure (and the vast majority of musicians hired by major American orchestras do receive tenure,) it simply becomes more complicated for you to be dismissed - for musical reasons, anyway. Like anyone working anywhere else in the world, we can be dismissed at any time "for cause." Since I don't work in HR, I'm not sure what legally qualifies as cause these days, but I would imagine that things like slugging a co-worker, stealing cash from someone else's locker, or leaping up in the middle of a concert to shout abuse at the conductor or the audience would be the kind of things that would qualify. Missing a high A-flat in Ein Heldenleben would not.

It's still entirely possible for a tenured musician to be dismissed from the orchestra for musical reasons, too. It gets a bit complicated, but it would be easiest just to say that, once a tenured musician is officially informed that the music director has begun the process of dismissal, the musician has the right to ask his/her colleagues to weigh in on the situation, and final dismissal cannot occur until the process, which includes ample time for the musician to attempt to rectify the stated problem, is complete. Under our contract, this process can be as long as 18 months, which seems like a long time, but is the same amount of time that a probationary musician has to prove that s/he is worthy of tenure in the first place. And in the end, if the music director really wants a specific player out, he'll be able to make that happen. Whether it's worth it to go through the whole process rather than attempt to find a compromise of some sort is another question.

So, yes, running amok would indeed get a musician fired, I would think. But the tenure system isn't there to guarantee lifetime employment - merely to level the playing field in what is often a highly combustible artistic situation.