Classical Ping
That is sad.
I think we had a similar problem in Ft. Lauderdale.
Where’s Antol Dorati when you need him???......
Maybe if one of them would come out and say he was gay...
Sure, after he squandered the whole budget on umlauts for his own personal use ...
I never joined the musicians union, and I knew that would be both good and bad.
This is a tale of many things -
(1) how elite and intellectually arrogant “entertainment” institutions cannot manage their own finances well, or develop business models that are not dependent on the taxpayers,
(2) how musicians are among the economic illiterate,
(3) how politicians mistake their own bubble of people, friends, associates, like-minded allies as “the people” when it comes to “classical” entertainment, though it is never more than a minority of “the people” ANYWHERE that frequent “classical” entertainment venues, which are often among the most expensive around
and, it is also
(4) an example of how Federal Reserve fueled economic bubbles help lead people into misallocation of financial resources; a process that has the aid of the political class and the media who all fail to help the public understand the economic & financial bubble they are in, a bubble that will provide unrealistic expectations of both value and future income
The musicians have only their own ignorance to blame, no matter how shoddily the orchestra management handled the PR about their finances. In 2007 when the real estate bubble was already being recognized for what it was, the musicians gained a 25%-over-five-year increase - as if the good times would continue to roll. One year later it was evident that 2007 was not a good year on which to be projecting the orchestra’s financial situation for the next five years. In fact revenue for 2006 & 2007 was probably inflated values over what might otherwise be expected.
Now, as the financial chickens have come home to roost and ONLY looked a little better in 2010 & 2011 because management started eating their seed corn - instead of immediately cutting way back before now, the dumb musicians don’t understand why management wants a 3X% pay cut from them.
Listen up musicians, management wants to keep the institution and your jobs going. It ain’t all gonna come from some new unheard of revenue source.
And if those of us who care more about the public treasury than we do your jobs, have anything to do with it, any solution will not get any additional public funds.
Same thing happened in Atlanta. The musicians were sure they were worth a whole lot more than they actually were.
Find me a small violin in that orchestra and I'll play a dirge or two on it and dedicate the songs to another of Minnesota's iconic senators, socialist loser Hubert Horatio Humperdinky Humphrey.
Leni (basking in the Florida sunshine)
As much as I love classical music, no taxpayer should be funding these orgs. Period. The same ole’ crap as the teachers and public unions.
to be quite honest with ya, I’m not going to lose a moments sleep worrying whether or not the Minnesota Symphony folds or not.
I do not think it should get public funds.
Stand on your own or die.
Let's ask the rest of the question: Do these "musicians" want to play music, or do they want to get rich off their patrons' increasingly limited discretionary funds? The principal flautist at the MnO makes more than 90,000 a year. That's a nice wad of cash for someone who plays a flute. Now add to that the 100+ personnel associated with the orchestra and tell me how much you've got to charge per ticket to pay them.
Why is this being laid at management's door? These players have shown that to them, it's not about the music or the audiences, it's about the money.
The SPCO just went back to work with a pay cut of 15,000 per player. How'd THAT strike work out for 'em? Now the MnO is going to do the same thing? To hell with them. Let them starve.
Buffalo, for example, has had an arts scene all out of proportion to its current [shrinking] population. Those arts [of which liberal Buffalonians are very proud] have been supported for over a century by the money made by very wealthy industrialists at the turn of the last century when Buffalo was an economic powerhouse.
But the money's drying up and current subscriptions don't cover the costs anymore. You wouldn't be stupid for thinking that Buffalo's artists would be lobbying and voting for a better economy that might support them.
You wouldn't be stupid, but you'd be wrong.
As a taxpayer, I’d rather support symphony orchestras than the palaces of the TBN TV preacher hucksters, which is what we do now.
Good friend of mine auditioned (violin) for the Spokane Symphony over the weekend. She told us flat out that whether she got the seat or not would depend on how many musicians came in from Minnesota for a long move, a large pay cut and a much smaller orchestra. Apparently it’s unraveling pretty fast.