American Orchestras' Dismal Future

[Double-A]

This sort of thing just always makes me skeptical as unions have been the convenient scapegoats and whipping boys for anything that goes wrong in all sorts of areas.

Look:  I don't doubt that your stories are true or at least near the truth (you seem to have at least some of them second hand:  Your sources probably exaggerated a little for effect).  But they are anecdotes, not data.  There is not math that shows that the cost of this sort of thing is more than marginal. 

If you can demonstrate with sound figures that this sort of thing raises ticket prices significantly we can all start deploring the union caused decay of Western culture.

[eschiss1]

Oh, we agree about the first tendency (even if here I am not aware of many orchestras or ensembles in the US, unionized or not, that really have a good record where cuts, timings, the first half of things mentioned, are involved, and am inclined to find the main sources elsewhere. As to the second part, I'm not sure what the problem is exactly with a formal process is to get rid of musicians merely accused of insufficiently bad behavior, in orchestras (or in teaching in the U.S., either, where this issue comes up too).

[Alan Howe]

OK, we're not getting terribly far without chapter and verse on the matter of unions, so let's move on, please.

[MartinH]

A lot of the problem lies with us music lovers who are too old, too lazy, too broke, or whatever to get off our duffs and go support the local orchestra. Like tonight. There's a New Year's concert by the local pro orchestra. I'm sure it's very nice, they'll play plenty of Strauss (Johann Jr & Sr), some Gershwin (tired of it), some Rogers and Hammerstein. They'll serve champagne during the intermission. But it's a drive. Tickets are NOT cheap and parking is expensive, too. It's easier to stay home comfortably in jeans, open my own bottle of bubbly and watch the Vienna Philharmonic bring in the New Year. I'm sure that the hall will be packed with the 1% and I won't be missed.

[eschiss1]

I compare the situation and programming of the radio-funded German and British (and Danish and Swedish and and ...) orchestras (which actually cofund cpo recordings) for instance (or even the more typical orchestras in those nations), compared to that of the typical US orchestra, and ... ...

There's a lot of very very complicated background behind that comparison, of course, or so I gather...

(And yes, I know, that's the dismal -present-, not the dismal future, a subject on which I am not qualified to speak.)

[jerfilm]

One last word and I will shut up.  I would not agree that unions are a minor part of the problem.  What I would stipulate to is that the managing boards of some orchestras share the guilt.  They let the situation get out of hand.  In the case of Minnesota, they raised $50M to renovate the LOBBY of Orchestra Hall and then locked out the musicians because they didn't have enough money.  Who the h....  is dumb enough to set priorities like THAT??   Little wonder the professional musicians were PO'd.

Jerry

[sdtom]

Also being in Minnesota I can second what Jerry has stated above. What I would like to know is where the funding came for the lobby and if it had to be earmarked for that particular enrichment.

[jerfilm]

well, I can't speak to that directly, Tom,  but from my limited experience in fund raising, if you do a Capital Campaign, which i'd bet the lobby thing was, you would be in big trouble if you decided after receiving the funds, that you were going to direct it to another type of project.  Not a good idea.

Jerry

[semloh]

OK - my tuppence worth!

The dismal prospect for US orchestras was discussed in the article by Philip Kennicott in New Republic, cited in the post that set this thread in motion. It drew attention to some opinions within the higher echelons of the American classical music establishment that I find truly shocking and hardly credible (what I'd call "gobsmacking"). For example:

- (the) category—serious listeners—is an uncomfortable one for almost all orchestra leaders.
- (re traditional audience behaviour) To participate obediently is to act as a slave. It is counter to our culture. And it is not, I am certain, what composers would have wanted. (not Kennicott's own view)
- Orchestras were encouraged—some would say strong-armed—to think about their community's needs, not their traditional role as custodians of a musical tradition.
- The League of American Orchestras ... thinks at the level of an airline magazine.

If these observations are true, then there is, indeed, a dismal future for American orchestras regardless of unions or musicians' fees. They are views that should shock all lovers of classical music.

I have never believed that orchestras should be hostage to the great composers or to a narrow definition of their musical agenda, but the idea that through diversification they can be all things to all people is patently ludicrous. This view has been stated many times in threads on UC referring to the downward drift of classical music radio stations, which have likewise sought to increase their ratings by misguided forays into cultural diversity, cross-over, and so on. The net result is that nobody is happy, and public support - including funding - declines. So often, I turn off ABC classical radio because they are playing improvised jazz, Asian indigenous music, pop opera, Irish folk songs, or Arabic music, for example, and I wonder how many other listeners are equally annoyed. I am convinced that people who tune in to a classical music programme - or go to a classical music concert - want precisely that - classical music, and nothing else. The rest is - or should be - peripheral to the orchestras' or radio stations' raison d'etre.

[Double-A]

Inspired by this post I went back and read the article in the New Republic.  And the author certainly has a point.  But then he ought to write better himself.  He seems to take Mark Twain's account of a concert at face value.  He compares the campaigns to make orchestras more popular to the second Vatican Council--very ludicrous and also incorrect.  And he is the criminal responsible for the following sentence (the "rowdy audience" a reference to Mark Twain):

"Beethoven may have written with the rowdy audience in mind, but the music of Debussy and Mahler assumed new conditions of listening, and pushed music to new extremes of intellectual concentration, sonic elaboration, and dynamic scale."

Such a sentence should get the writer a lifelong ban from writing (or rather publishing) on classical music ever again.
Whatever is right in the article it comes from a somewhat poisoned well.

[sdtom]

I did find out that the Minnesota Orchestra took the 50 million dollars out of their general donation fund to pay for the lobby. When the orchestra went on strike the union was pointed out as the blame. They could have taken the same money and paid the orchestra.

[minacciosa]

I can tell you that the single biggest reason more recording doesn't happen in America is the union. The extant contracts make it far too expensive to record here, hence American Classics are generated overseas with much more frequency. At this point they seem unlikely to change a loosing game.

[eschiss1]

And yet Germany has stronger unions, as do several others of those countries where recordings happen with more frequency.  Eh. ... Whatever...

[minacciosa]

Germany has a well established network of radio orchestras; an American corollary has not existed here in many decades. That's how they are able to create so many recordings, that along with union contracts that don't get in the way. Over here it is quite the opposite.

[giles.enders]

I can't think why Germany has to be brought into this but since it has, the Germans as a nation are much more inclined to the arts than the average US citizen.  As has been pointed out, there are many regional radio orchestras in Germany and they have reasonable audiences.  It is true that the German orchestras are unionised as are most orchestras but they are not petty in their behaviour like those of the US. 

I used to point out to my trustees when I ran concerts, it is a circular argument.  Firstly the audience has to be able to afford the concerts or recordings, secondly one has to build up trust and not foist vacuous modern works on them or as frequently happens in opera and ballet productions which are so altered they alienate a large percentage of the audience (London Coliseum is an example).  Once one has built up trust and one has a regular audience one can then try out less known works or new works.  If there is to be any form of subsidy, it needs to be at the box office. I recognise that musicians need a living wage but as a quid pro quo, they must put in long hours.  Most of the established musicians that I am acquainted with put in many hours of practice for which they don't get paid. 

I don't think we are going to get very far with this thread except to say that if you want excellent recordings, there are a number of first rate orchestras in the world and we do live in a global village.