Posted by David Carter on May 05, 2003 at 11:50:59:
In Reply to: Re: Saving Orchestras posted by why? on May 04, 2003 at 23:33:32:
The big full time orchestras do pay more than they used to. 30 or so years ago the Houston symphony paid the average musician enough to support a middle class living, about 20K or so as I recall. The 80K or so is much more than that, even taking into account the increase in the cost of living. Of course musicians can teach and play outside gigs as they always have. Even though the big orchestras don't need to pay so much to hire good players, they also pay too much at the top. The competition for "World class" conductors, and Guest artists has lead to pay levels that might make sense for block buster movies that might make the cost back from the repeat sales of a pre recorded meduim, but it makes little sense for to pay so much for performances that are not repeated via mass media.
I think that the whole economics of live orchestra (like the airlines currently) needs to be rethought. Like the airlines it may take several rounds of bankruptcy for this to happen. It shouldn't take 140K to hire an airline pilot (often trained at taxpayers expense) it shouldn't take 80K to hire musicians (who are also not trained at the employers expense) and it shouldn't take multiyear multi-million dollar contracts to hire conductors.