When Should Orchestral Musicians Take Pay Cuts?

Perhaps the least-discussed fallout from the financial crisis (at least in the MSM) is the impact on non-profits such as symphony orchestras and opera companies. These institutions survive on a combination of public and private fund-raising, revenue, and an endowment (long-term investment portfolio). Every year a small percentage of the endowment is withdrawn, with the amount based on the endowment’s average value over the past several years. To name one widely reported example, the Metropolitan Opera’s endowment has recently lost one hundred million dollars, about a third of its former value. The endowment draw (which was supposed to cover about a third of their operaing expenses) will, in turn, be downsized.

Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer finds that orchestras need a new business model, but goes on to discuss nothing but cuts on the expense side. The Met’s cancellation of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District is such an expense cut I personally regret, and Julliard recently cancelled auditions for its conservatory program for poor school children. But it’s the salaries of those greedy executives (the ones who manage the institution and raise money) and pampered musicians ($70,000 for a guest artist?) that really need trimming:

Is it really a good thing that Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, made well over $1 million for the year that ended in September 2007? Or that a hornist in the New York Philharmonic made $300,000, an oboe player in the Philadelphia Orchestra $249,000?

How about a stagehand at Carnegie Hall who makes $425,911 - plus $107,041 in contributions to benefits plans and deferred compensation?

Having worked in fund-raising once for a big Chicago attraction, I know that any executive bringing home $1M is charged with bringing in far more. Having said that, it’s being reported elsewhere that many are seeing pay cuts, off salaries that are hardly $1M as a rule. And as for expensive guest artists, the institution must balance its programming needs with its economic constraints. A world class institution must bring in world class talent on a regular basis, while doing what they can to negotiate better deals, and occasionally replace superstars on programs where their presence matters the least.

Now onto the millionaire stagehand. Maybe he can rescue Petelsen’s (the storied sheet music shop behind Carnegie Hall that’s now closing). I have to bet that the $425K figure is based on union overtime pay which can be quite a racket, without taking away from the ridiculous hours worked by uncelebrated backstage employees. Retiring and cashing in decades of accrued sick pay at your peak hourly wage can also add up to a nice chunk that’s unavailable to those of us in these hot web jobs. Who knows how that figure came about? Implying it’s the norm is probably as disingenuous as the myth that average Big Three auto workers earn $70 an hour. In any case, it’s rhetorical sleight-of-hand to use a seemingly overpaid stagehand as evidence that executive directors and oboists are paid too much as a class.

What will really upset some of my working-stiff musician pals is this innocent suggestion:

Then there’s the regular payroll. When a hundred or more applicants audition for a section violin spot, is it necessary to offer a starting salary of $130,000 for a player just out of school? Would the same audition draw less stellar talent if the job were offering, say, $80,000 the first year on a multiyear schedule to reach $130,000 in some year thereafter?

Mr. Dobrin was wise to cite violinists, who are indeed more plentiful and whose individual impact is not audible to the audience. To answer his question, though, it would seem that the same pool of hungry violinists would flock to audition. But Dobrin’s imagined “player just out of school” is not the talent pool for a full-time job in a major orchestra — even in the back of the seconds. This kind of job opening isn’t like filling an entry-level marketing internship, where you’re sure to get someone who’s good enough while being just grateful for the job. At least some of the stellar talent will be less interested in relocating, because they’re probably established somewhere with families. But hey, it’s just on violinist, right?

Recall that, in the first quote, Dobrin took aim at the salaries of horn and oboe players. Wind soloists! He’s clearly not considering the impact that each principal wind player has on the personality of an orchestra, especially the first oboe. I would direct his attention to a NYT article from 2005 about an unusual number of top oboe openings,

Changing any principal position can be subtly disruptive in an organism whose artistic expression depends on years of playing together. Personalities and musical profiles must mesh. The oboist is particularly important, and is often seen as the pre-eminent woodwind voice (though clarinetists and flutists may dispute that judgment).

”They are the principal fiddle of the wind section,” said Paavo Jarvi, the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. ”There is a musical and moral authority that comes with the position.” The principal oboist is often seen as ”the second concertmaster of the orchestra,” he said.

The prominence of the oboe, one of the earliest winds to join the orchestra, stems from tradition, the role of the principal player and the vividness and intensity of the instrument’s sound.

The market sometimes demands renegotiation and concession, but this nearly individual targeting is nonsensical. People who reach this level of achievement should not be cast as the “bonus babies” of classical music. Nor should they be expected to feel obsequiously grateful for a job because there are (supposedly) a hundred other players who’d do the job tomorrow for less.

By Bonnie Gibbons