Pittsburgh Symphony Salaries To Take Huge Leap

The Pittsburgh Symphony has not been on the radar screen of those watching orchestral negotiations this year, which makes sense, since the PSO’s contract won’t expire until fall 2006. But the musicians of Pittsburgh have been watching the contract battles quite closely, because their own deal contains an unusual clause, under which they will be rewarded for their willingness to take recent pay cuts with a whopping 23% raise in the final year of their current contract. That figure comes from calculating the average of the pay scales of the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra, and will take the Pittsburgh scale to $102,403.