Category: music

“A survey of British orchestral players by the Musicians Union finds that many have been reduced to taking part-time jobs in order to make ends meet. Aromatherapy, taxi driving, letting out rooms and web design are listed as supplementary occupations. One respondent complains that a young policeman earns more than a parental cellist, a plumber makes three times as much. Players may look smart in tie and tails on stage but their socks are full of holes and their satisfaction level is grumblingly low. The worst thing about being an orchestral musician, most agree, is the wretched pay.” Norman Lebrecht wonders: Is anything to be done?

“The three-year extension and modification of the present contract, worked out during the past nine months of negotiations between the orchestra management and the Seattle Symphony and Opera Players Organization, has three key elements. The first postpones raises that were supposed to come in 2005-06, the last year of the current five-year contract. The second affects health insurance, with musicians taking on some added costs, including covering 25 percent of the premium cost for their dependents. Finally, some future raises are being deferred”

The Seattle Symphony has had a recent run of deficits, putting it in a strong position in its just-concluded contract negotiations with musicians. “The symphony did not back away from its commitment in the 2001 contract to increase musicians’ weekly salaries 36 percent by 2006, which includes a 7 percent pay hike this year. To do so, the length of the season will drop back from 46 weeks to 45 weeks this year.”

“No one knows what will come of the dispersal of New Orleans’s artistic life, or whether the thousands of musical transients will become transplants. Like so much else in the aftermath of the hurricane, the question is unresolved. But here in Lafayette, where Cajun French can still be heard in the street, the signs are bilingual and old French Canada is the musical touchstone, musicians – locals and evacuees – are expecting a flowering of creativity.”

The record chain HMV Canada has removed all of Bob Dylan’s recordings from its stores after the singer made a deal to sell his new album exclusively at Starbucks. “A spokesman for HMV Canada told the Hollywood Reporter they were no longer stocking or displaying Dylan’s albums. The chain has previously boycotted CDs by Alanis Morissette and The Rolling Stones to complain at exclusive deals. When HMV Canada removed The Rolling Stones from its shelves in 2003, president Humphrey Kadaner said: ‘Any artists that choose to exclude HMV as a retailer for selling the product, this will be our response’.”

The Pittsburgh Symphony’s gala concert last Saturday was repeatedly interrupted by the popping of balloons suspended from the ceiling of Heinz Hall. “Due to the resonance of the concert hall, the would-be tiny pops thundered with resounding force, startling the audience and the musicians many times over.”

Young internet pop stars are blooming in China, where they record their music with just a laptop, headphones and a lip-mike. Xiang Xiang is the 21-year-old at the top of the charts. Her Song of Pig has notched up a billion downloads from admirers in China, Singapore and Malaysia, but the downloads are all free. Why free? “It’s purely a kind of communication. I get feedback and suggestions or comments on my work and then I can make changes.”

“Singer Tony Bennett, keyboardist Chick Corea and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard are among those named Jazz Masters by the National Endowment for the Arts and awarded $25,000 fellowships. The other recipients are percussionist Ray Barretto, composer Bob Brookmeyer, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco and New Orleans-born manager John Levy, honored as a jazz advocate.”

“According to the survey, orchestral musicians earn an average of £28,579 per year – of which £25,126 comes from their orchestral contract. (According to the Office of National Statistics, the UK average salary last year was £22,060.) The pay scale is fairly flat across the sector, with 71 per cent of respondents earning between £20,000 and £30,000. 14 per cent earned below that, and 15 per cent above. Over the last three years, musicians’ average earnings have risen at slightly below the rate of inflation.”

The Phoenix Symphony has shown a deficit in 15 of its 22 years in existence. Not this year though; they’re in the black. “The announcement comes in the wake of the completed $18 million renovation of Symphony Hall in downtown Phoenix, the hiring of young phenom conductor Michael Christie and a landmark six-year labor agreement between management and musicians. The tide finally might be turning for the much-beleaguered symphony.”