How Are We Going To Pay For It?

It's a question that is on everybody's mind. One that we hear over and over in a variety of contexts: health care, the two wars, our defense budget... I heard the other day that California is the wealthiest state, (in fact, if it were considered a separate country, it would have the seventh largest economy in the world) yet it can't pay its own government workers.

Naturally it doesn't stop at the door of the music world. Our orchestras are making panic grabs at keeping above water. St. Paul is taking a 12% cut, Phoenix staff/musicians/director is taking a 17% cut. In Minnesota, they are cutting back on their renovation plan and the staff is taking cuts and layoffs.

Detroit's music director says the musicians don't need to paid in the summer.

Regardless of what the Baltimore Sun says I happen to know that the Baltimore Symphony musicians started to bail out first with a million-dollar concession package, followed by 2 furlough weeks this year, and another million-dollar-plus package of concessions next year (which is at least a 17% drop from what they were planning on with the contract in place). Administration jobs at the BSO have been cut, and the remaining administrative employees are taking a similar cut to the musicians.

The Cleveland Orchestra is doing things the opposite way. The CEO and music director led the bailout with an 15% and 20% cut respectively. It still remains to be seen what the musicians will have to take, but in the meantime the fundraisers in Cleveland are suggesting that all of their regular contributors give 100% more than usual. If that isn't possible, they can give 50% more.

Cleveland's fundraising letter is accompanied by a laundry list of items where they are cutting expenses to get through the hard economic times.

Similarly, Baltimore is cutting its overall budget by 13%. I'm guessing this will include cutting some recordings (One has to wonder what the plan is with their choices in recordings anyway... How well can another Dvorak or another Rite of Spring CD sell these days?) and flashy bits from pops shows... maybe negotiating lower visiting-artists' performance fees (like Cleveland), and lower rent at their Bethesda home.

The traditionally wealthy Philadelphia Orchestra has already cut 20% of its administrative staff. Even though they recently celebrated surpassing the goal of its $125 million endowment drive, remaining staff members are taking at least a 10% cut in salary. Amazingly, the musicians will get a paltry raise.

So, to answer my question: Sometimes the administration is paying for it, sometimes the musicians are paying for it - in rare cases (like Cleveland) even the management will pay for it... but in all cases the smart orchestras are stepping down their expenditures and stepping up their fundraising campaigns.

related articles:
Houston
indystar.com
charlotteobserver.com
Minnesota Orchestra
Milwaukee Symphony
Dayton Philharmonic

BSO Skips the Usual BS

Mad, mad, mad props to the members of the Baltimore Symphony for doing the damn near unthinkable. They saw the massive wave of debt rolling over their company and decided to take ownership of what they knew was coming. The players committee came up with the idea of cobbling together a million dollars in savings through a menu of wage freezes, furloughs and other measures. They put the idea to a vote among the orchestra members, and it passed.

Voluntary concessions like these are becoming de rigeur in this economy. However, they are usually instituted by the management, and in the orchestral world, players are almost never willing to voluntarily give up pay. Though the starting salary in the BSO lands you comfortably in the middle class, the workload is extreme. It's little wonder why orchestral musicians get touchy when their bosses ask them to take less money.

Such requests by orchestra management invariably spark a torturous process of advances and feints that's as predictable and awkward as a mating ritual. Before it's over, there's usually the threat of a strike, and in the end, someone always gets screwed.

By skipping the foreplay, the BSO took a positive step towards increasing their job security, and they also put the ball back in the management's court. This being the non-profit world, the players' wage concessions are being called a 'donation', and the BSO has correctly seen it as a fund raising challenge, which they announced today.

He Was A Visitor

He Was A Visitor began as a joint project between Baltimore performing musicians and visual artists from the Maryland Institute College of Art. ANALOG arts ensemble will present a program of selections from Stockhausen's From the Seven Days, Rudolf Kämper's Pulsating Stars Enable New Precise Determination of the Rotation of the Milky Way, as well as an audience participation version of Robert Ashley's She Was A Visitor. Visual artist Cody Griffith is our visitor in the ensemble. He will be working from the same descriptive score as the musicians to create an intuitive realization, not as an accompaniment but as another member of the ensemble.

Below is a short interview with the visual artist...

Cody: As someone who does not play an instrument, I will perform with visual media, keeping in my that my pen will be my instrument. It is difficult to translate Stockhausen's concepts into a language of imagery. Many questions have to be asked concerning the stability of this idea. I have practiced intuitive drawing before and will try to remain true to Stockhausen's ideas.

Dolf: Normally, when visual artists and musicians collaborate, an animator is given a tape and asked to interpret what they hear - or, a composer is given an existing film and asked to find music the compliment what they see. This time, you and the musicians are working from the same score. What are some of the ways you would interpret the score that are different than the musicians?

Cody: As a visual artist, upon hearing music, I create imagery in my mind. These images often begin in an abstract form and then move into the figurative.

Dolf: Have you been involved in improvised or intuitive drawing before? How about drawing/painting in public performance?

Cody: Warren Linn, a professor at Maryland Institute College of Art, worked with me on improvised drawing for years, whether it be from sound or a visual journalism. I have also done portrait work at community art festivals and painted public murals.

Dolf: You are also presenting some film for one of the pieces. What was your thought process in coming up with the material for that piece?

Cody: I look at Stan Brakhage a lot. I tried to focus on the silence and chaos of nature.

He Was A Visitor will be presented at Normal's Books as part of the RedRoom series, March 14, 8:30pm. See www.redroom.org for more info.

Bernstein At His Worst

There's just no pussy footing around what an absolute turd burglar of a piece Bernstein's Mass is. I was just listening to Baltimore rehearse it at Carnegie, and it is done no favors by their production.

I don't know why orchestras can't wrap their head around this, but once you have a rhythm section playing with you, you've got to mic everything. You can't leave half of the acoustic up to chance. Well, you can, but the result is an awful goop of a sound which should be an embarrassment to any self-respecting musician. No orchestra would ever consciously play out of tune, but they are perfectly content (and oblivious to) bad sound projection.

Jubilant Sykes was marking most of his part, but he does sound like he'll be the one bright spot in an otherwise miserable evening. He's got a fantastic, complex voice.

Beyond that, nothing else is worth hearing, unless you are hardcore into Bernstein or music theater. The street chorus is chock full of musical theater singers all overacting their hearts out. Marin Alsop is along for the ride, rather than driving the piece, and it's just a shame to see so much time and money wasted on such crap.

Bernstein was a musician of the first rank, and a composer of the third rank. He punched out some of my all-time favorite music, but his ambition was so much greater. He had the ultimate masterpiece complex: feeling that every piece needed to be a 'masterpiece'. Sadly, the more he tried to write great music, the more his efforts showed. Bernstein just always reminds me of someone standing on his tiptoes to try and seem taller than he really is.

There are great moments in Mass, but they are too few and far between to be worth the effort of excavation.