Adaptistration

2007 Compensation Report: ICSOM Concertmasters

The final installment of the 2007 Adaptistration Compensation Reports will examine the compensation levels for International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) concertmasters...

2007 Compensation Report: ICSOM Music Directors

Following a season where the average International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) music director saw a slight dip in average income, 2004-2005 increases more than made up for those small losses...

2007 Compensation Report: ROPA Music Directors

If you were the music director for a Regional Orchestra Players Association (ROPA) ensemble during the 2004-2005 season, it is likely that you experienced the most significant percentage increase in compensation since before 2000...

2007 Compensation Report: ICSOM Executive Directors

Not unlike the previous season, the Executive Shuffle was a popular dance among ICSOM executive directors. In fact, 16% of the ICSOM symphonic ensembles had executive compensation figures which were impacted by a change in executive leadership...

Negotiation Special Update: No Confidence In Omaha

According to a statement released by the Omaha Symphony Musicians Organization on June 22, the musicians have passed a Vote of No Confidence in Omaha Symphony President & CEO Rob Hallam...

2007 Compensation Report: ROPA Executive Directors

In an effort to mix things up from the previous Compensation Reports, the 2007 installment will be published in a different order. Instead of cycling through all the ROPA ensembles and then all the ICSOM ensembles, the 2007 series will be published by position. To begin with, we'll examine compensation figures for Executive Directors...

The 2007 Compensation Reports Are Coming!

Right on schedule, the 2007 Adaptistration Compensation Report will be published starting Monday, June 25th. This installment examines the compensation trends among orchestra executives, music directors, concertmasters, and base musicians at 76 different ICSOM, IGSOBM, and ROPA ensembles for the 2004-2005 season...

Diving Head First Into Union Politics

Although this blog is designed to focus on issues related to orchestra management, every now and then it takes a road less traveled. Today, we're taking a sharp left onto the side streets of internal politics within the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the union which represents the majority of professional orchestra musicians...

Reviewing the Negotiation Process: Answering The Eternal Question

Now you know how the negotiation process works and who is responsible but the last piece of the puzzle is left unanswered: you don't know why negotiations function the way they do...

Reviewing the Negotiation Process: Who's On First?

Next in the series of negotiation articles is an installment which examines the individual parties on both sides of the table and how they intersect the negotiation process...

Reviewing The Negotiation Process

In anticipation of some articles examining the current slate of collective bargaining negotiation sessions, it would be useful to review the very popular series of articles from 2004 which examine the typical negotiation process, who does what, and why orchestras bother to negotiate in the first place...

So That's Who You Are

During Wednesday's radio discussion at Soundcheck with John Schaefer I mentioned the results from a recent readership segmentation survey here at Adaptistration and I thought it would be useful to post those statistics...

Phone Home Survey Results

The results from the three question survey about telephone etiquette policy earlier this week produced some fascinating data...

Appearing On WNYC's Soundcheck Today

I'll be appearing today on WNYC's Soundcheck with John Schaefer at approximately 2:00p.m. ET today to talk about whether or not declining print coverage of classical music is necessarily as bad as some of the doomsayers suggest. Furthermore, is it possible to make the case that blogs are actually becoming more important than print media and perhaps that's where the future lies...

Phone Home - An Adaptistration Survey

Some recent work for a client led me to think about how much time orchestras spend on creating and maintaining a telephone etiquette policy. Furthermore, I wonder how many managers out there have ever taken the time to call their organization just to see how the voice mail system and employee telephone etiquette measures up...

Billion Dollar Business

The Chicago Tribune published an article by Charles Storch which reports that Chicago's "arts are playing a leading role in Chicago's economy and performing big time"...

Universal Truths

Although I generally don't subscribe to many universal truths, some unexpected pre-gig warming up by musicians outside of my office this morning reminded me of one I do espouse: "for musicians, waiting for a gig to start is the same, regardless if it's bagpipes or Bruckner."

More Labor Ripples

Earlier in the week, it was Omaha Symphony and this time it is the San Antonio Symphony...

Looking Toward A Brighter Future

Given the recent round of doom and gloom being pandered throughout the business over large cuts in classical music coverage among traditional media outlets, I thought it would be useful to imagine a brighter future...

Things Are Stirring Up Again

Just a quick pointer today toward the heartland where a labor situation is brewing at the Omaha Symphony...

A Silver Lining Has To Begin Somewhere

With all this talk about diminishing classical music coverage in traditional media outlets, I think it is appropriate to mention that new forums of discourse seem to be popping up all the time...

First Atlanta, Now Minneapolis

Things aren't looking too good for the future of music criticism at traditional media outlets. Last week, the major newspapers in Atlanta and Minneapolis announced that they are doing away with their full-time music critics. Nevertheless, could orchestras have actually been a contributing factor behind these recent cuts...

What's In Store For June

As June ushers in the final weeks for most orchestras (and a transition into "summer mode" for the 52 week crowd) there are big things afoot on the horizon at Adaptistration...