Re: salary


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Posted by Jay Bertolet on July 24, 1999 at 10:55:04:

In Reply to: salary posted by T.Lathon on July 23, 1999 at 20:54:12:

Joe has given some very good and accurate information. Obviously, jobs in the top echelon of US orchestras pay generally in the 6 figure area, before any teaching jobs or other extra work that can be had. If you're curious to know exact figures, ICSOM puts out a wage scale chart which lists the specifics of all the major orchestra's contracts and salary levels. When doing your calculations, remember that the tuba position is generally a "Principal" chair and, thus, gets paid a premium over the standard salary. Also, it is very common for players to negotiate their actual salary with the management when they sign their contract so the above mentioned calculations should be considered a minimum or what is called a "base scale".

The orchestras below the top echelon of orchestras pay anywhere between $15,000 to upwards of $80,000 as I recall from the last chart I saw. The trick with these positions is determining what the prospects of a given orchestra are and then deciding if it is a "stepping stone" job or something you'll ride out until things get better. For example, when I took my job in 1985 it payed $14,000 for the first season. That was pretty low among all other orchestras at the time and wasn't even enough for me to have my own place (living in South Florida is expensive!). Fortunately, things have improved dramatically since then and I make a reasonable living with the addition of teaching jobs and whatever extra work I can acquire. The drag with a position in the middle grade orchestras (my term for orchestras with budgets between the big boys and the smaller orchestras) is the financial instability of such orchestras. Very often, middle grade orchestras are stretching themselves in an attempt to become top echelon orchestras and you never know if the community is going to financially support such an institution. But financial instability isn't limited to middle grade orchestras, look at what happened to the Detroit Symphony in the 1980's.

What kind of salary an orchestra pays can also be affected by the playing situation that an orchestra has to deal with. Our orchestra, for example, has a budget very close to the size of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's but we don't pay anywhere near the salary they do. It helps to look at the logistics of an orchestra to decide whether things are going to get better or worse. For example, I think Milwaukee owns their own hall and they do most of their rehearsals and performances there. So their logistics are relatively inexpensive because they are only paying for staff and hall maintenance. The Florida Philharmonic owns a small rehearsal facility (which is unsuitable for concerts) and has to rent performance facilities in the 3 counties we play in. So it costs us alot more to put on a concert because we don't own our own hall. Subsequently, the musicians get a smaller percentage of the overall budget because operational expenses are higher.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I can say that there are much bigger concerns about the quality of a given job than just the bottom line salary. Managements sometimes forget what their true function is, to manage the orchestras bookings, and end up treating musicians as second class flunkies or, as Joe put it, circus performers. If you don't like driving, don't take a job like mine. I easily spend more time driving from job to job than I do playing tuba. Also, look at the economic climate of the area an orchestra is in before deciding that a salary is good or not. The salary had better be pretty high if you plan to work in someplace like New York City where the cost of living is so high.

As with any endeavor, the application of common sense makes all the difference. Tuba jobs are so hard to come by that it behooves you to make the situation work if you are lucky enough to land such a job. Once the financial concerns are solved, a symphony job can be exceptionally rewarding.


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