From: jcm+@CS.CMU.EDU (Chris McGlone)
Subject: Re: Trouble with Syracuse Symphony         
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 13:43:06 GMT

In article  <1297@dscatl.UUCP>  Mark Gresham writes, referring to 
the Syracuse Orchestra firing their music director and criticizing his
$140,000 salary--


>My guess is that Akiyama's salary is a scapegoat.
>First of all, compare that figure with the salary of players for
>many orchestras in the same budget class -- an openingin the
>bassoon section of the Detroit Symphony (3rd, last year I beleive)
>was offering over $60,000 per year in an ad in the International
>Musician (Union national newsletter).

No way that Detroit makes more than New York or Chicago.  Check the ads again.
And there's no way that Syracuse makes half that--$25000 tops.  

>Second, it's not the conductor who manages the pursestrings
>anyway.  If there's a shortfall of $1.2million, you need to ask
>questions about management and marketing.  I would suspect that
>if one looks into the programming of the Syracuse Symphony over
>the past few years, one might get a clearer picture of why Akiyama
>was dumped (maybe not), or if one looks at the general economy of
>Syracuse.  To have such a shortfall, either someone spent a lot of
>money recklessly (management) or there was a tremendous shortfall
>in ticket sales (which could be blamed on music director or
>marketing or the economy).

Right.  Syracuse was one of several smaller orchestras that grew more than
they could sustain, a pretty common occurence in the late 70's and early 80's
due to better government funding (both national and local) and the general
economic boom which created a lot of "nouveau riche" who wanted to buy
respectability by contributing to orchestras.  Similar situations are
occurring all over the country--San Antonio is one I'm pretty well acquainted
with.

>Noting that there are 81 salaried musicians in the Syracuse
>Symphony, one might look at the current rash of "cut players
>salaries" that's going around managements these days, and if you
>cut the salary of the conductor (or get rid of a conductor who is
>supportive of player's salaries) and replace him with a lower-paid
>individual who does not venture support of player's salaries, then
>you have a better dig at cutting those salaries.

In general, conductors don't give a damn what musicians make.  The only
thing preventing salary cuts is the musicians union.  It's always instructive
in these cases to compare proposed musician's salary cuts with management
salary cuts, if any, since it's obviously management and marketing problems
instead of musical problems.

>Syracuse Symphony is also listed as playing 325 concerts per
>season -- nearly one per day on average.  First, those can't all
>be subscription concerts :-) so I'd bet that most of those are
>run-outs and school concerts (several a day in the latter case).
>Obviously, there's a 52-week contract involved with that number of
>services played.  $141,000 is hardly over-payment for a music
>director under those circumstances.  (The S. Symphony also lists
>both their executive director and artistic administrator.  Any
>idea what they make per year?)

Are you sure they're not listing "services" instead of concerts?  A service
can be either a concert or a rehearsal, and would be a lot more consistent 
with what I recall of Syracuse.  They don't have a 52 week contract.  And, even
if they did, the music director isn't going to be involved in most of those.  
School concerts are nearly always done by one of the assistant conductors.  
Typically the music director will do about 75% of the subscription concerts, 
and maybe a few pops concerts.  


The situation in Syracuse is serious, and has been for a while.  As I said above,
it's happening all across the country.  Unless something changes, a lot of
cities may only have CDs instead of orchestras, or an occasional touring
ensemble.  Is the symphony orchestra an obsolete institution in most cities?
Anybody have any opinions?  (I realize that people in this group are always
reluctant to state opinions! :) )

--Chris McGlone