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At least for Monday: Oboist Jeffrey Rathbun says he and the other musicians are “sorely disappointed” management hasn’t acknowledged sacrifices they’ve made in their last two contracts or their offer to continue to work for the next contract year with no increase in salary or benefits. The musicians’ contract expired last summer. The musicians say […]

You’ve probably already seen this; it’s been doing the rounds at lightning speed. But, if not…

I had a library nightmare over the holidays, and I don’t mean that figuratively.  You know those performance anxiety nightmares players can have over a particular piece that’s difficult or a recurring worst-case scenario?  Well, instead of dreaming my hand wouldn’t stay on the violin fingerboard or I couldn’t identify the proper chords on the […]

The New York Times reported yesterday on an odd incident at the New York Philharmonic: During a run of concerts that included Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall, ending on Tuesday evening, the Philharmonic declined to identify a substitute principal clarinetist even though the music director, Alan Gilbert, had singled him out for a […]

An interesting career path. An even more interesting career path. A good argument for screened auditions. The NY Times likes opera in popcorn palaces too. The CBC Radio Orchestra is born again as an Internet broadcaster. The Cleveland residencies are crossing paths with the Cleveland negotiations.

The symphonoblogosphere has been abuzz with stories about the labor troubles in Seattle and Cleveland, and these are indeed big stories. But there are other negotiations hanging fire as well. Unless I missed something, the Met management’s proposal to cut salaries by 10% has still not been resolved, while Detroit’s been having an extremely difficult […]

I had been wanting to see one of the Met’s new HD-in-theaters productions, but not quite enough to trek half-way to Chicago to the nearest theater that carried them. Recently, though, one of our local movie theaters began carrying the live HD productions, and our new music director, Edo de Waart, was asked to do […]

For a professional musician this is important.  Your image lives within the minds of the market, and not within your wishful thinking. You can try to put forth the image that you want, but your audience (in the broadest sense of the word—co-workers, contractors, conductors, producers, etc.), actually creates that image. Image, Identity and Positioning—What’s […]

I glad I didn’t have to try to follow this guy; not only would I have messed up, but I would have felt a little… violated as well.

This kind of bullsh*t ought to be beneath the dignity of all involved. Come on, folks; isn’t running an orchestra hard enough already? Interesting idea. The League goes virtual. I wish I wrote this well. A post worth reading in full. But what’s the hourly rate?