Budgets

This was sent as a letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal but not published. Unfortunate, as it is a very thorough look at the situation from an experienced local observer: One really doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry in response to Chuck Maisch’s column about the Louisville Orchestra that appeared in the Courier-Journal on […]

I had originally contemplated writing just the four previous posts on orchestra models. But given the currency of this topic both here and abroad, I felt it obligatory to summarize and reiterate some of my points. I also wanted to … Continue reading →

Tony Woodcock gave us a classic example of the “dinosaurs falling from the sky” genre of industry analysis on this blog last week. Before I try to dismantle his analysis, I should say that I don’t think he’s entirely wrong. Certainly the field has faced an unprecedented challenge since the beginning of recession in 2008. […]

Long orchestra strikes come to resemble a labor relations version of the infamous Ice Bowl; a painful and slow grinding out of points in horrible conditions that caused almost as much pain to the spectators as to the players on the field. Detroit shows some signs of becoming almost as infamous in the history of […]

Sir Isaac Newton, generally regarded as the most influential scientist in human history, once said “if I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Those of us who make a living playing in orchestras stand on the shoulders of giants as well. One of them, Fred Zenone, died on […]

The Indianapolis Symphony just reported a substantial deficit: A year of declining contributions and ticket sales left the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with a $2.8 million deficit. Symphony officials say its current budget has been cut by $3 million, to $26 million, in part through a 12 percent pay cut accepted by musicians in a new […]

Every crisis creates its own buzz phrases. Hurricane Lehmann and the resulting economic meltdown has created a suitably scary one for our industry, and I’m hearing it more and more: “the model is broken.” The latest manifestation is an article by Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, on the Huffington Post […]