Blog: Page 53

The Syracuse Symphony board is giving up because it’s just too damned hard: Syracuse Symphony s board of trustees will file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, likely next week. Interim Executive Director Paul Brooks made the announcement Tuesday following a 2  hour SSO board meeting. Board chair Rocco Mangano, seated next to Brooks in a conference room […]

These days, when symphony orchestras make national news, the topic is usually not a happy one.  Yet one group has received a very different kind of coverage: the YouTube Symphony Orchestra (YTSO).  Culminating in a performance at Australia’s Sydney…

This is a story I have been planning to tell for a long time. A tale of romance, passion, and great expectation and how this all crashed upon the rocks of government bureaucracy. But let’s start at the beginning. In … Continue reading →

The extraordinary news from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, that the 82-year-old librarian, Joseph Havashvilli of the city’s 380-year-old conservatory of music, had concealed for the last sixty years, Mozart’s Symphony No. 42, has amazed the music world. Musicologists have … Continue reading →

Playing an instrument well is really, really hard. Playing together with other people is not much easier. But playing the dynamics on the page is quite easy. So why do so many people in orchestras do so well at the first two and so badly at the last one?

I am no longer working for the musicians’ union so I am just going to call it like I see it… It is time for the musicians of the DSO to make their best deal and go back to work. Sadly, we have seen this so many times – musicians using brute force to try […]

The Syracuse Symphony is shutting down after musicians refused to accept $1.3 million in concessions: The decision will bring the 50th anniversary season of the orchestra to an unceremonious end. There were more than 20 Syracuse and regional concerts remaining in the 2010-11 season. The orchestra’s 18 full- and part-time staffers and 61 core and […]

Let’s assume that anyone reading this knows that the sum total of all the money an individual earns is called the gross. It is reported by your employer to the Federal Government in the form of a wage and tax statement called a W-2, and a copy is sent to you each January for the […]

DSO management has apparently set yet another deadline: The musicians claimed management set an April 1 deadline for a deal or the summer season would be lost and the fall season would be jeopardized. They also said management was unwilling to meet at the bargaining table before the Friday deadline. The two sides have not […]

We all know the maxim “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Well I believe this to be inaccurate.  The truism should be: “The road to Hell is paved with good ideas.” Because it is all those brilliant, … Continue reading →