Tab dump 12/14/09

New Hampshire Music Festival musicians have filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against management with the National Labor Relations Board.

The Cleveland posts A Deficit.

Nobody thinks there was a magic ingredient in Strads anymore; nonetheless, people still insist on debunking the idea.

ICSOM Chair Bruce Ridges talks about stuff with Polyphonic senior editor Ann Drinan.

Negotiations aren’t going well in Long Beach.

The Baltimore Symphony gets a big gift for its education programs.

Conductors suffer from age discrimination too.

Milwaukee’s United Performing Arts Fund raised lots of money.

It’s hard to run an orchestra in a community that looks like post-WWII Berlin, except without the people.

But it’s not impossible, at least if the orchestra is the recipient of a massive endowment gift.

Michael Kaiser thinks the answer to our problems is more interesting programming. He also thinks the answer to my pitch problems is to put my fingers in the right place more often.

The NEA believes audiences for what we do are shrinking.