[Dixielandjazz] The Music Business Changes Constantly

[Steve Barbone]

          Not for everybody mon the DJML, but certainly for those band
          leaders who are thinking ahead. The music business is
          constantly changing, and so should we. Don't feel sorry for
          the musos in the NY Philharmonic. Average player there makes
          $100,000+ per year. Principal players as much as $300,000.
          Think about that the next time you sell your services for $50.


Cheers,
Steve Barbone

August 14, 2004 - NY TIMES -By John Rockwell
Philharmonic Downshifts From Jet Travel to Buses

When the New York Philharmonic announced last month that it was pulling 
out of a planned tour to Spain and Italy in early September, little 
alarm bells went off. This was the third tour that the Philharmonic had 
canceled within a single year. What was going wrong? Had the touring of 
orchestras become as economically unfeasible as live broadcasts and 
recording contracts? Was the Philharmonic somehow mishandling its tour 
negotiations? Was the orchestra outmoded and classical music dead, as 
people variously fret these days?

"We feel insecure," said Newton Mansfield, a veteran first violinist and 
member of the players' orchestra committee. Zarin Mehta, the 
Philharmonic's executive director and president, he continued, "has 
fallen victim to a whole set of circumstances over which he has little 
control. But from the sidelines, we worry that the administration is not 
on as sure a footing as it should be."

Mr. Mehta is also concerned (not about his own administrative skills; 
lack of self-confidence is not his problem) that the current model for 
orchestra tours is outdated.

"We need to make a completely different concept of touring and of the 
way we finance the tours," he said in an interview in his Avery Fisher 
Hall office. "We need to plan far ahead and, if necessary, cut them off 
in time to plan something different instead."

Mr. Mehta's new tour model involves multiple corporate sponsors; 
reducing costs, for example, by taking buses instead of charter flights 
from city to city; and a determination to cancel with ample time to plan 
New York replacement concerts.

Like so much else in the orchestral world, tour financing began to sour 
in mid-2002, with the recession and fears of terrorism. That was about 
the same time that several midlevel North American orchestras began to 
threaten bankruptcy.

At the Philharmonic, Citicorp had been the principal sponsor for 
European, Asian and South American tours for more than 20 years. The 
company had underwritten some domestic tours, too, but found their 
corporate image more profitably enhanced, Mr. Mehta said, when the 
orchestra performed abroad.

Through the Philharmonic's summer 2002 Asian tour, Citicorp and the 
orchestra had friendly discussions, adjusting the subsidy depending on 
the nature and extent of the tour and for inflation. But for the planned 
October 2003 tour of Europe  the first of the three over the last year 
to be canceled  Citicorp offered a flat fee based on the Asian tour. 
Given inflation and the declining value of the dollar vs. the euro, the 
orchestra couldn't make ends meet.

"Our costs would have been $700,000 more than what the presenters and 
Citicorp offered, and we couldn't possibly cover that," Mr. Mehta said.

A planned West Coast tour in February fell victim to a similar squeeze, 
although this time Citicorp was not involved.

Michael Ecker, the producer of the Seville International Music Festival, 
asserted recently that the Philharmonic had withdrawn from Seville 
because the orchestra insisted that the festival cover lost fees from 
other tour cities that had canceled. Mr. Mehta brushed that aside, 
suggesting that Mr. Ecker had canceled the entire festival because of 
poor sales and shaky financing.

 From the orchestra's point of view, a lost tour represents primarily a 
loss of prestige; "ego" was Mr. Mansfield's word. Musicians are paid on 
a 52-week contract, so unless a few minimize their personal expenses and 
hence keep some of their per-diem money, the players receive no extra 
compensation for a tour.

When a tour must be canceled, the administration tries to schedule 
something in New York instead. In October, Lorin Maazel, the music 
director, conducted what Mr. Mehta, with his characteristically dour 
humor, called "our critically acclaimed Beethoven festival." In February 
Itzhak Perlman came in to play the violin and conduct. Both substitute 
series sold out. The cancellation of the September Spanish-Italian tour 
came too late to replace it with something in New York, and the 
orchestra is simply swallowing the contractual expenses.

So now, Mr. Mehta is looking ahead with his new tour model in mind. For 
a three-week tour of Korea and Japan this October, he has solicited 
$200,000 each from five corporations, including Citicorp. A Midwest tour 
in February will be by bus. For a three-week European festival tour in 
late summer 2005, Mr. Mehta is looking for a single sponsor, possibly 
Citicorp, but all travel will be by bus or train.

The Philharmonic's need to tour is more acute than that of most American 
orchestras, which have summer festivals like Tanglewood or Ravinia to 
fill up some of their 52 contracted weeks. Mr. Mehta said he had cut 
back the Philharmonic's 35-to-36-week regular season at Fisher Hall to 
32 weeks. ("It was too long," he explained.) With five weeks of parks 
concerts and new early-summer lighter fare in Fisher Hall, plus nine 
weeks of vacation, six weeks are left to be filled with tours or other 
special events  including, for the last two summers and the next, two 
weeks in Vail, Colo.

Feelings of insecurity aside, the Philharmonic players seem sanguine 
about letting Mr. Mehta resolve the tour problem. Mr. Mansfield said the 
question of tours had not played a major role in the negotiations for a 
new contract; the old one expires on Sept. 21. Minor tour issues have 
already been negotiated and resolved.

For the future, Mr. Mehta spoke of a European tour in November 2005; an 
Italian tour in June 2006; a West Coast tour in November 2006 segueing 
directly to Asia; and a European tour in May 2007. All are in various 
stages of negotiation and planning but all will conform to Mr. Mehta's 
model of multiple sponsors and as much surface transportation as possible.

"Touring is important for our image," Mr. Mehta said. "It builds pride 
in the organization and among the musicians. Which is extremely 
important for us and for them."