Arts Advocacy

Check out this exciting new opportunity announced recently by the League of American Orchestras: The League of American Orchestras has launched The Ford Musician Awards for Excellence in Community Service, a new program supporting orchestra musicians and the essential work they do in their communities. The program is made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund. […]

Recently Nathan Kahn, SSD negotiator, posted an article on ICSOM’s Orchestra-l list-serve that was published in The Guardian in February 2006 about why so many musicians are quitting their orchestra jobs for… According to Anna Price, the author, The money’s terrible, the stress is awful and the music is plain boring. No wonder so many […]

The League of American Orchestras recently announced their new five-year strategic plan. You can read an executive summary, an abridged version, or the entire plan by clicking here. The summary begins with a quote from Jesse Rosen, President & CEO: This plan was developed in a moment of great possibility. It builds on the momentum […]

Orchestras around the nation have responded in a variety of ways to the challenges of becoming more diverse and accessible institutions. Some have developed fellowship programs designed to support African American and Latino musicians moving from their formal music education into the ranks of professional players. The League of American Orchestras, which has a long […]

During a recent conference call among the Polyphonic team, the question arose about whether orchestra musicians ever make musical political statements. Certainly many orchestras performed for “Musicians Against Nuclear Arms” (MANA) back in the 1970s and 1980s. I personally put together a concert with the Hartford Symphony and other area musicians in 1985, featuring Benita […]

The Minnesota Orchestra held its Annual Meeting on December 3rd and not only announced a surplus of $15,000 but accepted an amazing gift from the musicians. The players, who formed the non-profit Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra while there were locked out for 16 months, have dissolved this organization and donated the monies raised from self-produced […]

By nature, a composer’s work exists outside the bounds of human time. Works are remembered for centuries and, eventually, millennia, but the feedback loop varies greatly; it often takes years or generations for a composer’s work to receive deserved recognition. For performers, the feedback loop is immediate—sometimes rewarding, sometimes disappointing, always providing an opportunity for […]

Over the last few decades, many American schools of music have embraced the repertoire and missions of new music ensembles. Boundaries are broken, venues explored, students challenged, and new sounds ring out. What a change from the 1980s, when musicologist Susan McClary argued that “both popular and postmodern musics are marked as the enemy, and […]

The summer issue of Symphony magazine had an article by Michael Stugrin about the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation’s Education and Community Envestment grants, awarded to 22 orchestras in 2014-15. The grants rage from $13,000 to $27,500, and are granted to orchestras of all budget sizes. Mr. Sturgin’s article focuses on four recipients: The Central […]

I’m pleased to report that I plan to attend our first rehearsal next Saturday morning, September 26th, and expect to receive a paycheck in early October. The Hartford Symphony musicians had a rally on the steps of the state capitol in Hartford at noon on September 9th. AFM representatives from New England and New York locals […]