As an outsider, it’s obvious to Ivan Hewett that the top tier of American orchestras overpays its players. Salaries at eye-watering levels would make any British orchestral player weep with envy.
While the stand-off between Republicans and Democrats continues on Capitol Hill, another rancorous dispute has brought one of America’s great orchestras to a dead halt. The Minnesota Orchestra hasn’t played a note since October 2012. The reasons for this reveal the mind-set of greed and astonishing complacency that has brought several top tier US orchestras to the brink of ruin.
In Minnesota the dispute has reached a point of bitterness where each side can see nothing but malice and stubbornness in the other. The management insists the accumulated $6 million deficit is unsustainable and requires drastic action. They want a cut in the player’s basic salary of almost a third, a reduction in benefits and conditions, and a radical reconfiguring of the orchestra’s programme that would downgrade classical music and bring money-making populist acts into Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
The musicians have refused this and also a subsequent, very slightly sweetened offer. They’ve mounted a counter-attack on their own website, castigating the management for lack of artistic vision, and asking whether a big fund-raising campaign to improve the hall (helped along by dipping into the orchestra’s endowment fund) was the wisest course of action.
The players have offered solutions of their own, with much more modest salary cuts allied to proposals which would — they say - deal with the deficit in time. The management have rejected all their proposals as hopelessly inadequate. Meanwhile the players have been locked out of their home, without pay, for a whole year.
While the stand-off between Republicans and Democrats continues on Capitol Hill, another rancorous dispute has brought one of America’s great orchestras to a dead halt. The Minnesota Orchestra hasn’t played a note since October 2012. The reasons for this reveal the mind-set of greed and astonishing complacency that has brought several top tier US orchestras to the brink of ruin.
In Minnesota the dispute has reached a point of bitterness where each side can see nothing but malice and stubbornness in the other. The management insists the accumulated $6 million deficit is unsustainable and requires drastic action. They want a cut in the player’s basic salary of almost a third, a reduction in benefits and conditions, and a radical reconfiguring of the orchestra’s programme that would downgrade classical music and bring money-making populist acts into Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
The musicians have refused this and also a subsequent, very slightly sweetened offer. They’ve mounted a counter-attack on their own website, castigating the management for lack of artistic vision, and asking whether a big fund-raising campaign to improve the hall (helped along by dipping into the orchestra’s endowment fund) was the wisest course of action.
The players have offered solutions of their own, with much more modest salary cuts allied to proposals which would — they say - deal with the deficit in time. The management have rejected all their proposals as hopelessly inadequate. Meanwhile the players have been locked out of their home, without pay, for a whole year.