Adaptistration: Orchestra Governance: The Musicians

Orchestra musicians are highly trained artists who have devoted years of practice and personal sacrifice towards a career of performing orchestral repertoire. Most musicians relocate to an area specifically to join the orchestra and ultimately become members of the community. They have a significant personal stake in the survival of their orchestra due to the focused nature of their professional training as musicians. As such, they do not have the luxury of being able to transfer their highly trained skills to another filed of business as managers are capable of doing.

For most, performing orchestral performance is their primary source of income and changing jobs almost always involves relocation to an orchestra in another community. The length of tenure with any given ensemble varies based on the ability of the respective ensemble to provide a living wage. Nevertheless, they have long institutional memories and nearly all veterans have witnessed their orchestra survive at least one major financial crisis. Some musicians volunteer enormous amounts of time toward unpaid, non performance related committee work in order to increase the likelihood that their organization will survive and prosper.

Salary based orchestras which provide a living wage employ anywhere between 32-115 musicians whereas per serve orchestras which pay musicians less than a living wage typically employ 30-60 musicians. Musicians make use of collective representation, and therefore negotiate collective bargaining agreement with their board to determine their compensation and benefits as well as establish working conditions. This contract, typically referred to as a CBA (collective bargaining agreement) applies to all of the musicians. Cumulative expenses related to the CBA constitute the single largest expense for any orchestral organization.

Musicians obtain a position in an orchestra by means of an audition. For example, if a position opens in the viola section, the orchestra will place an announcement in trade papers advertising the position. Individual musicians will then send in their resumes outlining their performance experience and an audition committee composed of current orchestra musicians are formed to evaluate resumes and invite a fixed number of applicants to audition for the position. The audition consists of a series of rounds with players eliminated at each stage until a finalist is selected. After a probationary period of one to three years, the incoming member is then offered tenure as a permanent member of the orchestra or dismissed, therefore initiating the entire audition process again. Typically, the music director has a significant amount of input on the selection of a finalist and whether or not that individual is granted tenure, although musician input is taken into consideration. If a musician obtains a position in an orchestra that fulfills their personal artistic requirements as well as providing a reasonable living wage, they will usually remain in that position for decades.

Musicians are responsible for providing and maintaining their own instruments and professional development. For string players this usually means expenditures from $40,000 - $150,000 for a single instrument. For wind players, this figure is from $5,000 - $90,000, although most wind players are required to equip themselves with more than one primary instrument and their instruments are subject to natural degradation and require replacing more often than string players. This expense is almost never subsidized by the orchestra and is entirely the responsibility of the player.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Good: Typically, professional musicians decided to pursue this path since their early teens and by the time the leave their academic conservatory training they already have a decade of dedicated preparation toward their careers. They are highly motivated, hard working professionals that possess advanced training from conservatories which rival the academic training of Ivy League institutions. It is reasonable to compare a classically trained professional musician to an engineer that attended MIT or a physician who attended Johns Hopkins University. They take an active interest in furthering the art of live performance music in and out of their position in the orchestra. Many teach privately, passing on their skills to a new generation of performers and perform in smaller ensembles to help refine their skills. Music is something they live with in nearly all aspects of their life; the nature of their work does not necessitate a "9 to 5" mentality. They respect and work well with their counterparts in administration and are eager to help promote the organization in any way they are equipped.

Bad: The pressures of shrinking job opportunities and increased production on the conservatory level has created fierce competition for a hand full of orchestra positions which provide a living wage. As such, more and more musicians are forced to dedicate so much of their time toward performing standard repertoire on their instrument of choice many do not take as active of an interest in the rest of their art as their predecessors did. Over the course of a long career the grinding repetition of performing many of the same works repeatedly causes some musicians to allow their playing to erode and take advantage of the protection afforded to them by tenured status. They become intensely bitter over unnecessarily difficult collective bargaining negotiations and members who volunteer on committees are typically ill prepared for the rigors of serious contract negotiations.

Ugly: Being artists, it is easy for musicians to develop a "prima donna" attitude, making it difficult for managers and board members to deal with them under even the best of circumstances. They treat stage crew and staffers poorly as well as fellow musicians. Unchecked, this behavior can lead to serious artistic degradation in the section surrounding the individuals in question. The complex issues surrounding these problems can lead to bitter disputes between managers, music directors, and musicians when it comes to removing a player that is no longer fit to be a member of the orchestra. Musicians have long memories and once mistreated by management or the music director they are very slow to become trusting and cooperative even to individuals who have demonstrated they are worthy of that trust. This constant state of discord can lead to an implosion of the orchestra at an artistic level and it is not unheard of for minor disputes between players or between players and management to grow into lawsuits.

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