It’s tax time, so for the next few weeks the Editor’s Choice will feature tax related questions. William Hunt is our resident Polyphonic.org tax expert. Not only is he a superb violinist, he also has an MBA in finance from the Simon School at the University of Rochester. I don’t know of anyone more knowledgeable than[…]
Read More
This article by Michael Drapkin was first published in October of 2011. In it, Michael describes a different orchestra financial model–how the financial stakeholders of an orchestra i.e., the musicians, staff, conductors could share in the economic success or failure of their orchestra. There is definite risk/reward here, if instituted by an orchestra it would[…]
Read More
Peter Pastreich held the position of Executive Director of the San Francisco Symphony for 21 years, retiring in 1999. By all accounts that I’ve seen or heard, he is one of the most respected orchestra managers—maybe it’s because he’s retired now. Anyway–the article that follows is an account of his 2009 presentation at the League[…]
Read More
If you checked out my previous Editors Choice blog, you will remember that the research of Richard Hackman revealed that orchestral musicians are not so happy in their jobs. Quoting Hackman, It’s a bit ironic. Players in symphony orchestras are near the top of their professions—they are among the handful of talented musicians who actually[…]
Read More
In the 1996 Summer issue of The Musical Quarterly [80(2), pp. 194-219], J. Richard Hackman, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and Jutta Allmendinger, a professor of sociology at the University of Munich published a large-scale study of 78 professional symphony orchestras from four nations. Over the years, within the orchestral world, their study[…]
Read More
Here are some of my comments on the original NY Times letter and Bruce Ridge's response: [1] "The Metropolitan Opera…
About ten days ago, Les Dreyer, a retired violinist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, had his letter to the editor published in the New York Times. Evidently his writing generated some interest—in fact, enough interest to be featured, along with 12 or so others in “Reader’s Reactions.” Mr. Dreyer’s letter is the focus of this[…]
Read More
Today we add a new feature to Polyphonic.org–the Editor’s Choice. Since we launched our site in 2006, we have a accumulated a vast amount of content. In addition, we also have the articles that were published in Harmony, the periodical of the Symphony Orchestra Institute. Much, if not most, of this content is still relevant[…]
Read More
If you have an interest or concerns about musician’s health issues, you will want to check out this Special Report from Musical America. It covers topics ranging from injury prevention, (with Polyphonic.org frequent contributor, Janet Horvath, prominently represented), to health care plans for performing musicians. Here’s a sampling of “chapters.” Musician, Protect Thyself: A Few […]
Read More
One learns, after attending a certain number of weddings and after accompanying a certain number of choirs, that most attempts…
The Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop has really been trying to change things up in the orchestra world. A couple of years ago I wrote about plans for an orchestra fantasy camp, (my words) for adults, and how the amateur musicians would be working with the pros of the orchestra. Apparently it has been a[…]
Read More
I subscribe to various list-servs, and one of them is orchestra-l. It’s for musicians who are members of ICSOM orchestras (International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians). Lately there has been a lot of back and forth about musicians using electronic devices in rehearsals when they aren’t playing. Here is a sample. “Bonjour! — I […]
Read More
No comments yet.
Add your comment