If you had tickets to hear Jennifer Gunn play a new piccolo concerto by Ken Benshoof with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this weekend, you need to know that the concert has been canceled, because the orchestra is on strike.
Gunn still wants to premiere the piece, and conductor Riccardo Muti has expressed his support for Gunn, who is the orchestra’s principal piccolo player.
Chicago Symphony Board Chair Helen Zell and President Jeff Alexander posted the following statement on the Chicago Symphony website a couple of days ago:
Dear Patrons of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association,
The musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have made the decision to go on strike, after months of thoughtful and productive discussions aimed at reaching a new three-year employment contract. ...
As in any negotiation, both parties have been working diligently to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. In fact, both have already agreed to a significant number of improvements for a new contract.
...
Our musicians enjoy, without question, one of the best contracts in the world of symphonic music, including wages, seniority pay, paid time off, sabbatical leave and health care coverage. We are proud of this fact and work tirelessly every day to earn and raise the funds to support it. In these negotiations we remain apart on coming to an agreement on wages and the pension benefit. We have offered wage increases, and what we consider to be a generous transition from our defined benefit pension plan to a defined contribution plan.
We will continue to work around the clock to reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial for all involved, including the community that loves and supports this great Orchestra.
We thank you, our loyal patrons, for your support of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, and for your understanding.
I bolded one sentence in the statement because it might not be clear from skimming what the nature of the labor dispute is exactly.
This morning, Chicago Symphony principal conductor Riccardo Muti joined the musicians at the picket line to express his solidarity, Howard Reich reports for the Chicago Tribune.
Muti also asserted, and reiterated, that he’s not acting against the Chicago Symphony board. Still, that was an important gesture for Muti to make.
According to Leonard Slatkin, who was music director of the Detroit Symphony during the 2010 Detroit Symphony strike, a music director should remain neutral during a strike.
But apparently Slatkin seems to also think a music director must avoid even the appearance of taking a side. As best as I can recall, Slatkin never stood with the Detroit Symphony musicians at the picket line.
I think the Chicago Symphony musicians would respect Muti whether he appeared to side with them or appeared to side with management.
I also think that in this situation, Fritz Reiner would have sided with management, and the musicians would have respected him for it.
Except maybe the musicians who’ve become fodder for Reiner anecdotes, like the bassist who brought binoculars to a rehearsal because he couldn’t see Reiner’s tiny beat pattern.
This weekend’s Chicago Symphony concert would have also included a less often played Rossini overture, Gunn also playing a Vivaldi concerto, Beethoven’s Second Symphony and Wagner’s Tannhauser Overture.
It is my understanding that there would have been rehearsals for that concert today. According to Reich in the Tribune, Gunn is still practicing the Vivaldi and Benshoof compositions.
Whenever there is talk of orchestra musicians going on strike, it is almost inevitable that someone will suggest that maybe the musicians should be paid less.
Yet somehow there is always money in the budget to pay the orchestra executives. That needs to be questioned a lot more.
It sure is a lot easier to find someone to be an orchestra executive than it is to find someone to play an orchestral instrument at the level of skill Chicago Symphony concertgoers have come to expect.
Something else that has not received as much attention is why men in orchestras tend to get paid more than women who play the same instrument. Which brings us to:
Elizabeth Rowe settles equal pay lawsuit
Meanwhile, in Boston, flutist Elizabeth Rowe has settled an equal pay lawsuit with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Rowe was paid significantly less than principal oboist John Ferrillo.
Granted that the flute and the oboe are very different instruments (I actually find the oboe easier to play, though I have never actually tried to play a transverse flute).
Granted also that Ferrillo has more seniority than Rowe, and that he was poached from another orchestra while she made it through the audition process.
Still, can those two factors really explain the $70K pay gap? Maybe, maybe not. Malcolm Gay reported for the Boston Globe a month ago that Rowe settled, but the details of the settlement are not public.
I guess we will have to wait for the next Boston Symphony tax disclosure to find out to what extent there is still a gap in pay between Rowe and Ferrillo.
On a slightly related note…
I tried to create a GoFundMe page to raise $500 for a very short oboe and tuba concert to take place at Detroit Labs, to premiere my Fugue in D minor for that unlikely combination of instruments.
The GoFundMe website let me go through the steps of writing up the campaign, but then it said that my account “couldn’t be created,” even though I had a GoFundMe campaign on there four years ago.
But maybe that’s not the sort of thing GoFundMe is for. I get the impression GoFundMe is more like for if I had an accident or a cancer diagnosis, situations which, knock on wood, I hope to never be in.
This little oboe and tuba concert would just be for fun. If I figure out where to post a fundraiser, maybe I’ll update on here.
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2019 · 7:39:47 PM +00:00
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Alonso del Arte
Strike now in Week 2
With the Chicago Symphony musicians’ strike now entering its second week, this weekend’s concerts, which would have featured guest soloist Vadim Gluzman playing Bruch's Violin Concerto, and Osmo Vänskä conducting Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 in A minor (the Scottish), have been canceled.
No big loss there, both of those pieces have been played and recorded frequently enough by the Chicago Symphony. The programme would have started with a less often heard Sibelius piece, though.
The screening of An American in Paris, which would have been accompanied live by the orchestra, is also canceled.
The Chicago Sinfonietta’s concert has been moved to the University of Chicago campus. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain canceled their Chicago tour stop.
Both Chicago mayoral candidates, Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot have expressed solidarity for the musicians (like the Detroit mayorship, the Chicago mayorship is technically nonpartisan, but I can tell you that in Detroit only Democrats have a serious shot).
In response to Preckwinkle’s comment, Jeff Alexander said “We’ve made a decision to make no response to her inappropriate comments.” Geez.
Here's an important tidbit that kinda got buried in the Chicago Tribune update:
Stacie Frank, the association’s CFO and vice president, acknowledged the accuracy of those figures [numbers presented by the musicians to support their claim that the new pension plan would cost more] during the teleconference but explained certain nuances.
…
Still, she acknowledged that while the musicians’ accrued pension benefits would be untouched, musicians would bear risk in future benefits via the proposed direct contribution plan. And new musicians coming into the orchestra would be entirely subject to the direct contribution plan.
Emphasis mine. Would the orchestra executives share in any of that risk? I would guess not.
Lastly, on the slightly related note, my problem with GoFundMe was due to certain things getting disconnected in the four years since my previous GoFundMe campaign.
With the help of the GoFundMe staff, those things are reconnected and the campaign is live at www.gofundme.com/...
As I think it over more, though, it's not absolutely required to have live musicians at the JavaScript MeetUp, though it would be preferable.
It would be acceptable to present a recording, if I could find two musicians to record it for me.