Who said classical music was dying? In Chicago, it looks like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) with Riccardo Muti is such a big hit that the patrons are fighting for seats. In case you haven’t heard, a fistfight broke out in one of the boxes during last Friday’s concert. As reported by Stefano Esposito in [...]

Pushing The Sky Up In Boston
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) recently wrapped up a new three year collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that flies in the face of the Chicken Little Think Tank sky is falling doctrine. Normally, we wouldn’t spend time looking at what amounts to a typical contract with standard improvements but given the recent concessionary agreement in Philadelphia, [...]

Is Philly Still Competitive? Let’s Examine Some Numbers
Among the largest budget orchestras, one of the most competitive issues is the ability to attract and retain the very best talent and perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the primary components in that equation is base wages. So I thought it would be helpful to take a look at what sort of impact the recent Philadelphia [...]

Muti Faints During Rehearsal, Slatkin Fills In
In a different time and place, I would have though the press release from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) announcing that music director Riccardo Muti became ill and fainting during Thursday’s rehearsal and Leonard Slatkin was going to fill in was a gag. But sure enough, Muti was ill and taken to a local hospital [...]

Chicago Symphony Musicians Leaflet For Detroit
On 1/20/2011, the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) distributed leaflets before the evening’s concert which expressed support for musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and urged DSO music director Leonard Slatkin to “use his influence to persuade the Board of the DSO to negotiate in a spirit of compromise and respect.”…

2010 Orchestra Website Review: Best & Worst Of
Wrapping up the US reviews for 2010 is the Best & Worst from this year’s review. The Best recognizes orchestras that made particularly large advancements in certain categories while the Worst examines organizations that could benefit from improving particularly damaging components and/or practices…

2010 Orchestra Website Review: Special Recognition Awards
During every orchestra website review, several orchestras deserve special recognition for how well they satisfied evaluation requirements as well as demonstrating particular originality and creativity for specific website components, regardless of overall score. As such, the Special Recognition Awards are designed to highlight individual achievements and promote them as benchmarks within the field…

How NOT To Use New Media
If you’re looking for a good example of how to use a new media platform in the worst possible way, American Federation of Musicians (AFM) International President Thomas F. Lee provides the best example I’ve come across to date with a series of videos the AFM released on YouTube. Everything in this video from the [...]

Coattail Advertising: Good Or Bad?
Brian Sacawa posted an intriguing piece at his Sound Directions blog on 5/4/2010 about a Cleveland Orchestra radio spot for a Carmina Burana performance that ties directly into the Cleveland Cavaliers playoff bid. Sacawa wonders if this sort of coattail advertisement is ultimately worthwhile via a thorough and thought provoking piece…
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