There’s nothing quite like experiencing three shows of Bugs Bunny At The Symphony in the space of two days, which is precisely how I spent the past weekend here in Chicago. It was particularly fun to sit in the audience and take in all of the ambient chatter. There were no shortage of families with [...]
Tag Archives | Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

And The Winner Is…No One
The 6/11/2012 edition of the Washington Post reports that the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) failed to find an acceptable candidate as the winner of its YouTube powered soloist competition. For those unaware, the PSO’s program was not entirely unlike many reality television driven talent competitions, the goal of the competition was to locate up and [...]

Another Sudden CEO Departure, This Time In Pittsburgh
Looks like the Colorado Symphony Orchestra isn’t the only group to pull a CEO quick-change before the season is half over. News started filtering out yesterday morning that the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) simultaneously confirmed that Lawrence Tamburri would step down as president and CEO immediately and be permanently replaced by PSO board vice-chair James [...]

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 [...]

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…

Another Ratified Contract
The 9/20/08 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published an article by Andrew Druckenbrod which examines a recently ratified three year long collective bargaining agreement (CBA) at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO). Although the agreement’s minutia is not yet available, the article touches on the most prominent issues such as contract length and base pay…








“Faulty Reasoning”
The 6/12/2010 edition of the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “The Zero Option; Do regional orchestras still make artistic sense?” by renowned culture journalist Terry Teachout. I was planning on writing something about it but instead, I decided it would be better to reprint one of the reader comments to Teachout’s article…