It would have been appropriate for Robert Herold to fact-check before writing his recent commentary, “Way Out of Tune” (11/15/12). Here’s what’s really going on.
First, Mr. Herold mentioned the salary of the core musicians of the Spokane Symphony. We wish we could pay our musicians more. While our musicians are truly deserving of full-time work with the orchestra, unfortunately our community cannot support that volume of orchestra music. This is part-time work over a nine-month season. In fact, under the recently expired contract, musicians couldn’t perform services for more than 20 hours in any given week. In order to make ends meet, many musicians do in fact teach music — some in schools or universities; many teach private students. Some have non-music second jobs. But they all have plenty of opportunities to earn other income.
Second, each musician knows by May 1 the schedule for the September through following May season. Can there be conflicts between a musician’s schedule and the Symphony? Sure — that’s why our contract provides for personal leave (for immovable personal events, like weddings, funerals, graduations, etc.) and business leave (leave for conflicts with a musician’s “day job”). Leave has been liberally approved: an average approval rate of more than 93 percent for the last three seasons, and more than 96 percent for the first two months of the current season.
The Symphony’s musician business model is “we’ll guarantee to pay you for a minimum number of concerts, rehearsals and educational events, and we’ll pay 100 percent of the insurance for your instrument, 50 percent of your health insurance and we’ll contribute to your pension plan. And in exchange, we want you to show up for our concerts — don’t leave us (and our concert-goers) hanging for a better-paying gig that weekend with a different orchestra.” Other orchestras have different business models. Some orchestras are full-time, some are per-service without minimum guarantees. Some orchestras can draw on qualified substitute musicians easily because they are nearby. Our closest qualified talent pool for many substitutes is 280 miles away.
Third, Mr. Herold also implies that in order to balance our budget, the board is going after the pay of the musicians. The reality is that reducing the pay of the 36 core musicians has been a last resort. Everything else that could have been cut has already been cut. The 2006 contract with the musicians reflected the economic reality of its time, and the 2012 musician contract needs to as well. Ticket sales and contributions are down compared to before the Great Recession. If there isn’t cash flow, the Symphony can’t continue to make payments of $120,000 to $180,000 a year to 36 musicians for work that isn’t being performed.
Where Mr. Herold and I agree is that to support the musicians, you can buy a ticket to a Symphony concert — or, if you already come to our concerts, bring a friend or neighbor. To support the musicians, make a charitable donation to the Symphony. To support the musicians, buy an advertisement in the program book. To support the musicians, buy a raffle ticket at Christmas Tree Elegance at the Davenport Hotel and River Park Square in the coming weeks.
All of these activities will help the Spokane Symphony create a better cash flow than its current operating budget estimates. Improved cash flow is better for the musicians and the Spokane Symphony.
David Green is a certified public accountant and executive vice president of the Spokane Symphony Board of Trustees.
When I heard of the troubles, my family donated $250 to the Spokane Symphony. We have been season ticket holders for 10 years and hate to miss any concert.
I hope others will do the same to get the budget back on a footing that allows all the musicians and support staff to be able to come back to the table, and on to the stage.
I also hope that more people will purchase tickets to upcoming concerts and fill the empty seats. We know the economy is tough but for the price you will get a moving and uplifting event to fill your soul.
Our city´s Christmas Lights will be a bit dimmer this holiday season if this cannot be resolved.
Thank you,
Valerie Rongey Nov 20, 2012 | Reply to this comment
Got a question for you: Do you want players with "day jobs", or do you want a unique product in the Inland Northwest, an orchestra made up of strictly professional musicians? FYI, there are plenty of orchestras around the area that are made up of musicians with day jobs. I could rattle them off for you, but you could also do a quick google search and find them. How successful do you think Spokane will be marketing a product that is no longer unique?
Are you implying somehow that Spokane deserves any less of an orchestra than the one it has now? Based on seeing the over-capacity crowd at Shadle Park High School last Saturday, I´d say Spokane loves, and deserves, the orchestra it currently has. And somehow, without any prior concert promotion experience, the musicians managed to throw together a top notch, unforgettable performance in very short order.
Who really is expensive here? Are the musicians expensive? Yes, very, but worth every penny. They also deserve to make enough of a living that they can devote the majority of their time to perfecting their craft, so they can continue to bring us the great performances we saw this past weekend. But as far as I understand the finances of the Symphony, they don´t even make up half of the budget.
Do people understand and appreciate what they do? Not enough of them. And for the past few years, the opportunities to build up an audience through outreach concerts were squashed, not by musicians, but by management, or, shall I say, mis-management.
Just some food for thought. Nov 20, 2012 | Reply to this comment
"In fact, under the recently expired contract, musicians couldn’t perform services for more than 20 hours in any given week." Anyone who understands how a professional orchestra works, realizes there is this thing called individual practice that takes up a lot of time outside of that "20 hours in any given week." To initially state that this is a part-time job and then complain that the musicians cannot perform services for more than 20 hours per week is absurd.
You can´t have your cake and eat it, too. You can´t lower pay to an unsustainable amount while placing stricter leave requirements on the musicians making it more difficult to find other better paying work on the limited occasions that would occur.
"The reality is that reducing the pay of the 36 core musicians has been a last resort. Everything else that could have been cut has already been cut." The reality is the Symphony ended last season with a surplus and this years proposed budget is giving raises to the conductors and budgeting for higher pay to guest artists. That does not appear to be a last resort. Freeze the conductors´ pay just as the musicians´ pay has been frozen for the last 3 years and try bringing in fewer guest artists if time are tough and save a little money there. This is no last resort. This is a sure way to devastate the artistic integrity of the organizations and force the orchestra to settle for much less than it has beautifully built to this point.
Please, Mr. Green, reorder the symphony board´s priorities and invest your resources in the musicians who, without, in case you have forgotten, there would be no Spokane Symphony. Nov 20, 2012 | Reply to this comment
Other orchestras which have recently sought substantial cuts in musician compensation are burdened by significant debt and a dwindling endowment, neither of which is the case for the Spokane Symphony, which is in admirably good shape financially. We´re willing to do our part to maintain that fiscal health, but we should not go so far as to irreparably damage the organization´s principal asset: its artistic excellence.
We acknowledge that the Spokane Symphony cannot afford to pay its musicians "full-time" salaries (and by the way, the Chicago Symphony, whose players earn an average salary of $170,000, also "works" 20 or fewer hours each week, as most of a musician´s actual work is ´off-the-clock´, practicing and preparing individually, and Mr. Green should know that.) Since this is the case, the SSO needs to allow us the ability to earn a living - as musicians. "Day-jobs" are largely a thing of the past for our orchestra, and this is progress which should be cheered by anyone who desires a terrific concert experience. If we are prevented from pursuing other performance opportunities in order to augment our salaries (and our schedule is busy enough to preclude this without some flexibility), we´ll then be forced to do so by turning our attention away from our craft, and this will significantly diminish our ability to provide exciting, uplifting performances for our audience.
The Spokane Symphony should happily encourage us to further ourselves artistically and financially (within reason - we don´t want to leave anyone "hanging", advance notice would be required, and other well-considered restrictions would also be in place). Other "part-time" orchestras do this, and so does the SSO for our two conductors, both of whom even have other regular posts (we understand that this isn´t possible for all of us - again, we just need a degree of flexibility.) We stand ready to reach an agreement which balances the artistic integrity of the whole (the orchestra) with the professional integrity of its parts (the musicians). As ´holson09´ rightly points out: what´s best for the musicians is best for the orchestra as well as the community we serve. Nov 20, 2012 | Reply to this comment