Orchestra Life

Eight services into a nine-service week, and it was still only Saturday. Tempers were frayed further by it being the second of two consecutive days in the orchestra’s least favorite venue, an aging vaudeville palace with no backstage facilities except for a cramped below-stage crossover reached by steep but badly-lit staircases apparently designed more for […]

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. […]

Things have gotten dire indeed in Hartford. Management issued a statement recently that unless a settlement is reached within the next few weeks, they will close down the orchestra at the end of January. In an unprecedented move, management added a service to the musicians’ schedule, requiring all contracted players (and paying them) to attend […]

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 […]

NPR had a very nice piece about the NY Philharmonic’s new Music Director, Jaap van Zweden, on their evening “All Things Considered” program. You can listen here. It even includes a lesson on pronouncing his name! — Ann Drinan

The musicians of the Hartford Symphony took a very difficult vote last Sunday night, after a lengthy but collegial discussion. The result was ratification of management’s “best and final” offer, which includes very significant pay cuts for the Core musicians. The entire package was a 38% reduction in musician compensation. Musicians in Hartford are closely watching developments […]

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 […]

Even casual followers of employment law know that the issues around religious liberty and the employment relationship in the US are becoming more contentious; the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision and the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue licenses for same-sex marriage, are only the most prominent recent examples. […]

Every couple of years or so, someone in the mainstream media decides that Orchestral Auditions Are Interesting and does a story on them. This better-than-most iteration, written by Janelle Gelfand, appeared online at cincinnati.com, the website of  the Cincinnati Enquirer: “If a candidate has made it to the final round of our audition process, they […]

While depression is not the taboo subject that it was when I was young, it still takes a fair amount of courage for anyone to open up about their own struggles with the disorder, much less someone who occupies as public a role as does ICSOM chair Bruce Ridge. His article resonated for me in […]