Orchestras turned upside-down
September 12, 2014 In: Orchestral Models, The FutureDiane Ragsdale is someone who thinks about our business in very different ways than do I; ways that I have sometimes believed were dead wrong and occasionally harmful. But she’s not wrong in her most recent post at ArtsJournal: In their article, Thinking About Civic Leadership, David Chrislip and Edward O’Malley convey that in the […]
Symphonie Addictique?
September 9, 2014 In: Health & Wellness, Music Medicine, Orchestra Life, ProfessionalismNormal Lebrecht recently linked to an article about a British documentary on addiction amongst orchestral musicians: Addiction is blighting the lives of many classical musicians as they grapple with performance anxiety and antisocial hours, a cellist has said. Rachael Lander features in a Channel 4 documentary that brings together classical musicians whose careers have been […]
Who Won the Met Negotiations?
September 5, 2014 In: Labor relations, solvency, Sustainability, What They Think About UsAccording to Norman Lebrecht and Terry Teachout, the unions did: (Lebrecht) [Gelb]demanded 16-17% cuts from the orchestra and chorus and settled for 3.5 percent now, 3.5 percent later. No huge pain for the musicians, but huge gain. They have won the right to be party to major spending decisions, limiting Gelb’s powers as manager and […]
You Are Your Best Audience
August 25, 2014 In: Classical Music, OnCampus, Staying informedToday’s post is the fourth post in our August Guest Blog Series! Elizabeth Erenberg is a flutist and co-founder of the website www.Musicovation.com, a site dedicated to sharing and generating positive music news. In the fluidity that is a music career, I define myself differently almost every day. Today, I am a blogger. Last week, […]
A Note to Me: D.C.
August 21, 2014 In: Back to School, Careers, Education, Entrepreneurship, Higher Education, Musicians Today, OnCampus, StudentsWhat I Would Tell My Younger Self… As a university professor, I often tell my studio stories from my student days in order to make a point about something, usually practicing! I have been thinking about this topic quite a bit this summer, as the new performing/academic year is fast approaching. This is certainly not […]
The NFL jumps the shark
August 20, 2014 In: Compromised Integrity, Labor relations, The ApocalypseWhile this story doesn’t have an exact analogy in our business, it’s nonetheless revealing of a phenomenon that has begun to appear in our field: The NFL reportedly asked Katy Perry, Rihanna and Coldplay, their top choices to play the 2015 Super Bowl Halftime Show, if they would be willing to pay the league in […]
Ranking Music Schools: What's Wrong with This Picture?
August 18, 2014 In: Back to School, Education, Higher Education, Staying informed, StudentsThis is the second post in our August Guest Blog Series! Barbra Weidlein is co-founder and director of MajoringInMusic.com, a website for prospective music and current music majors, parents, and music educators. A little over a month ago, an article popped up on USA Today College Online, about a new ranking of the “top 10″ […]
Some revisionist history from the AFM
August 13, 2014 In: Da Union, Orchestra Economics, Recording IndustryAn article in the August 2014 International Musician got me thinking about Electronic Media Guarantees and their history: …[former ICSOM chairman Brad] Buckley recalled that the earliest instance of what was then called a “recording guarantee” came into existence decades ago with the Philadelphia Orchestra, during the tenure of Music Director Eugene Ormandy. The maestro […]
Simply Sitting Better: Looking At the Pelvis
August 11, 2014 In: Health & WellnessThis is the first post in our August Guest Blog Series! Kayleigh Miller is a fantastic young violist who is dedicated to musician health. Check out her website at www.musicianshealthcollective.com. If you follow health and movement blogs, you may have read recent headlines such as “sitting is the new smoking” and “the dangers of sitting.” […]
Moving Forward
August 4, 2014 In: Careers, Editor's ChoiceAs musicians it is quite natural for us to occasionally question our career decisions, but what if we are thrown a curve ball and something unexpected gets in the way of our well-ordered plans? This is, in fact, what the author of this Editor’s Choice article faced at an early point in her career. How […]