Those Darned Canadians!

Take a read of this article about the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which played this past season at a slight deficit and is ready to renegotiate musicians' contracts without asking for a cut in payroll. The approach of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra management is in direct contrast to that of the Minnesota Symphony and many other American orchestras. Those darned Canadians want to produce the best possible music they can, and know that that will attract audiences (and donations). What a concept!

I think most American businesses can learn something from Toronto's CEO: "I’m trying to increase the compensation to musicians so that we can attract the best and reward them for great performances." That's right. Pay more to get the best employees, and good things will happen. As an old boss of mine used to say, you can't save your way to prosperity. You have to spend a little get the best people, and the best people will deliver the best results. Period.

More Orchestra Troubles

It's happening again, this time across the river in St. Paul. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, asked to take a 33% pay cut (and cut number of musicians and performing weeks) has been locked out by management. A very sad time for the state of music in the state of Minnesota, and across the nation. Read more here.

How to Kill an Orchestra

More details are coming to light about management's offer to the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra. Read more details here, from Robert Levine at the Polyphonic.org. It's sickening.

Levine reports that the musicians' yearly base salary is set to decrease from $111,566 to $77,896. Do the math; that's a 30% pay cut. (Some musicians earn more, based on titled chairs and seniority and such, but this what the typical musician takes home.) Again, I ask -- how would you react to your employer asking you to take a 30% cut in pay? Could you pay your bills if you were taking home a third less than you are now?

It gets even worse for extras and subs. (Extras are just that, extra musicians necessary to perform certain pieces; subs are substitutes for regular player who are on vacation, out sick, or otherwise absent for a given performance.) Currently, extras and subs earn the same pay as do the regular players. Under management's proposal, subs and extras not only have to suffer the same 30% pay cut as do regular players, but an addition 25% pay cut beyond that. That reduces their paycheck from the current $2,144 per week to $1,123 per week. That's cutting their pay almost in half.

(BTW, if you think extras and subs should be paid less than regular players, you don't know how this whole orchestra thing works. Extras and subs do the same work as regular players while they're there, but with an added degree of difficulty, especially for subs. A sub might get a call in the morning to report for rehearsals that afternoon, and then have to sightread music they've never seen or played before. I have a lot of respect for these non-regular players, and know that they're worth every penny they're paid. Read this blog post by sub violinist Jill Olson Moser to gain a fuller appreciation of this particular role.)

There's more to it than just the money, but geez, this is horrific. It's especially appalling when you realize that management is asking musicians to take this kind of pay cut at the same time the Orchestra is doing a $50 million renovation to Orchestra Hall. I'd rather stick with the current lobby and such than lose any of the talented musicians who play the music we love. It's a real slap in the face.

Also a slap in the face is the salary of Michael Henson, the Orchestra's President and CEO. Henson's current salary is $404,000 (up from $390,000 three years ago), and near as I can tell he's not taking any pay cut. (In case you're wondering, his salary is 1.5 times the average for that position in similarly sized non-profit organizations.) How can Henson justify his outrageous salary while asking the musicians who create the music to cut theirs by 30%?

Some observers are speculating that his is all a grand ruse by Henson and the rest of management to simply cancel the entire season that the Orchestra is playing outside of the under-renovation Orchestra Hall. The replacement venue is the Convention Center, which is less than ideal -- and, for all I know, might be more expensive than their normal environs. Heck, it's also possible that subscriptions and ticket sales are down for this out-of-Hall season. Rather than suffer lost revenues for this season, why not lock the musicians out and call the entire season a loss? I don't know if this is really the case, but it's certainly plausible.

This situation is unacceptable. If finances are really this bad, then cancel the expensive renovations, slash the CEO's exorbitant salary, and do whatever else is necessary to keep paying the musicians what they're worth. Since none of these other measures are even under consideration, this looks to be exactly what it is -- a frontal attack on some of the most talented musicians in this country.

If management gets their way, many of these players will simply leave for more acceptable positions elsewhere. Is that what we as an arts-loving community want? I don't think so.

I'm not sure what we can do for the musicians right now except voice our support for them and our discontent with Michael Hanson and Orchestra management. If this ends up as badly as it could, the Orchestra will lose a lot of community support -- and ticket sales. Do you really want to give your hard-earned entertainment dollars to the insensitive management creeps who want to punish the fine musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra? I certainly don't, and I won't.

It's that simple. Push through these draconian pay cuts and they'll kill the Minnesota Orchestra as we know it. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

ISO Settles

It looks like the Indianapolis Symphonic Orchestra musicians have settled with management, but at a horrific cost. (Read the details here.) First, there's a 32% pay cut, with the average salary decreasing from $78,000 to $53,000. (There are yearly increases baked into the five-year contract that bring that back up to $70,000 in year five, but still -- how would you like your paycheck cut by a third? And $53,000 is a pretty lousy salary for world-class musicians, don't you think?) Second, the ISO is no longer one of the country's 18 full-year orchestras; the season is now going to be 38 to 42 weeks.

Frankly, these terms place the ISO more in the mode of a community orchestra than a professional one. That's a shame; the orchestra could have been (and was) a whole lot more. Let's hope that orchestral musicians elsewhere (such as in the Twin Cities) don't have to sacrifice so much.

You know, this never would have happened to a professional sports team.

Bye Bye Sqeezebox

CNET reports that Logitech has discontinued the Squeezebox line of products. That's too bad; the Squeezebox was a nice option for digital music lovers. It's also a bummer if you're a current Squeezebox owner, as there's no indication how or how long Logitech will be supporting you. I think it's another case where everyone's focusing on video and ignoring the audio-only options. C'est la vie.

In related news, Logitech's new UE Smart Radio looks to take the place of the old Squeezebox Radio. You can use it to stream audio from a variety of music services (including Spotify and Pandora), as well as all the digital music you've stored on your personal computer. It runs $179.99, and operates off wall power or (for six hours) its own internal batteries. You control it with an iOS or Android app on your smartphone.  Not a bad deal if you need an all-in-one music player for one of the rooms in your house.

Orchestra Troubles

For classical music lovers, some disturbing news headlines:

• Minnesota Orchestra's Fall Performances Wiped Out with Lockout
• St Paul Chamber Orchestra Managers Reject Union Contract Offer
• Indianapolis Symphony Cancels Season's First Performances
• Striking Musicians Walk Out on Chicago Symphony Orchestra
• Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Stops Paying Musicians, Locks Them Out of Facility

Many major orchestras around the country are in the middle of serious labor disputes. Management claims ticket sales are down and donations have dried up and they need to cut salaries. Musicians just want to play, and to pay their bills. What the hell is going on here?

Every situation is different, but there appear to be some commonalities. First, the economy; it's affecting everyone, and is pinching both discretionary income and charitable donations, on which many municipal orchestras rely. Second, the management of many of these orchestras appears to be more interested in the bottom line than in the music; I suppose this is to be expected, but you'd also expect those in the music business to be at least a little bit interested in the music. And third, it's possible, just possible, that classical music is a declining (dying?) art form that has little or no mass appeal in today's uneducated, of-the-moment society, and those few that continue to have interest are literally dying off, leaving their empty seats behind.

I don't know all the details of all these situations, although I do know musicians in both the Minneapolis and Indianapolis organizations. These are all good folks, talented musicians, earning decent but not exceptional salaries commensurate with their years of training and standing in their industry. We're not talking about the money-grubbing 1% here; these are your neighbors down the street who just happen to bow a string or bang a timpani instead of sitting behind a desk or punching a time clock.

I'm most familiar with the Minnesota Orchestra situation. First, some background. The Minnesota Orchestra is one of the top symphonic orchestras in the country, if not the world. If this were a sport, this would be a top-tier NFL team, staffed with the top players in their positions. The Orchestra has a stellar history, dating back to 1903, and continues to lead the way artistically in the 21st century, both at home and abroad. This isn't your normal community orchestra, folks; this is truly a world-class organization, and one that's uniquely supported by an arts-loving community.

Orchestra management is in the process of renovating Orchestra Hall, where the Orchestra plays. It's a truly beautiful building, but could stand a little sprucing up. Management has raised more than $97 million in its current Building for the Future campaign, including $14 million in taxpayer funding for the $50 million Orchestra Hall renovation. So there's some money there.

Under the Orchestra's previous contract, which just expired, salaries grew by 3% - 4% per year. That's not a lot but it's not nothing; at least it kept up with inflation, more or less. Going into the current contract negotiations, however, Orchestra management didn't propose similar small increases; instead, it proposed to cut the average musician's salary by $46,000 a year. That's a 30% to 50% pay cut, depending.

Think about that. How would you react to having your salary cut by a third? How would that affect your household budget? Would you still be able to pay the bills? Or would you be dusting off your resume, looking for something better?

Yeah, that's a huge pay cut. Huge. And it's not as if these world-class musicians are earning a fortune, either. The average Minnesota Orchestra musician earns $135,000 (many less than that, of course), so the pay cut would bring that average down to $89,000. Again, we're talking world-class musicians, the very best in the world at what they do. These are not NFL-level salaries, folks; at the current salary level, a Minnesota Orchestra musician makes less than a typical dentist, or about as much as a captain at a regional airline. Good wages, yes, but not anywhere near excessive.

What happens if management gets their way and salaries get cut almost in half? Well, a lot of these world-class musicians will simply leave. Other orchestras will pay them what they're worth, even if the Minnesota Orchestra management won't. And that means that the Minnesota Orchestra will no longer be a world-class orchestra. Yes, there are lots of talented folks graduating every year from way too many quality music schools, but filling a chair vacated by a player with decades of experience with one just out of music school will not result in the same level of performance. The quality of the music will suffer -- and the audience will suffer for it.

This is not a situation we would tolerate in the world of sports. We're building a new football stadium up here, just as they did back in my old home town of Indianapolis. That stadium, of course, will be financed with taxpayer money. (And don't get me started on why overburdened taxpayers have to pay for new stadiums so that multi-million dollar team owners can make a little bit more money than they were previously; that's inexcusable, in my book, but a different subject for a different day.) The Vikings will not be asking their players to take a 30% - 50% salary cut to move into the new stadium. The public would go absolutely apeshit if their beloved team were to cut salaries and lose players. Just wouldn't happen.

But that's exactly what's happening here in Minneapolis. We're plowing $50 million into a revamped concert hall and then driving away the musicians that helped build that support by forcing them to cut their salaries almost in half. The result will be the classical music equivalent of turning an NFL quality team into a semi-pro team. Instead of having the Vikings play in the stadium, we'll be hosting the Minnesota Sting instead. Sports fans wouldn't settle for that, and neither should music lovers.

I don't know all the finances of the Minnesota Orchestra; few people do, as they haven't been made public. But what Orchestra management is proposing is tantamount to professional suicide. If management wins in these contract negotiations, the Minnesota Orchestra as we know it will cease to exist. We'll be left with a semi-pro pops orchestra, which is maybe what management wants; maybe they'll still sell enough tickets to cover the new lower payroll. I don't know, but it's something that our arts-loving community cannot and must not accept.

Me, I'd rather have the old Orchestra Hall and a top-flight roster of musicians than a pretty new hall filled with sub-par players. It's all about the music, folks. Asking the current musicians to live on half their current wages is insulting. The community needs to get involved and get this problem solved, pronto. (As do all the other communities affected by similar orchestra problems -- including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, just across the river.)

If you want to learn more about what's happening in Minneapolis, from the musician's viewpoint, visit the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra website. For some interesting viewpoints on orchestra problems across the U.S., check out the Sticks and Drones blog, filled with insight and opinions from two professional conductors. And do whatever you can to support your local musicians; they need all the support they can get.