[Dixielandjazz] The Music Business Changes Constantly
Steve Barbone
barbonestreet at earthlink.net
Sat Aug 14 07:19:43 PDT 2004
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orchestra tours is outdated.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."
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