I've told y'all this before...
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2023 8:33 am
This is what many corporate owners/managers and (possibly) people orchestra boards ACTUALLY think of classical music:
https://wreg.com/news/local/memphis-sto ... ight-crime
If they donate to local orchestras, they may well actually not like (or even DISlike) classical music, and may well only be doing so to show (like Charlie the Tuna) that they have good taste, or - simply - to become politically connected (with the motive being eventually seeking a local political appointment or elected office).
(Even though we like PLAYING classical music - and might even like listening to others play it, occasionally - only a very small percentage of all people do, and even a smaller percentage would even consider leaving home to attend - even if free/top-notch - a classical music concert. If someone is young, spending several years of their own energetic/great-health youth and going into debt learning how to play the tuba - unless they're perfectly happy looking forward towards the community band/orchestra or school band director scene - or maybe playing the SSB and marches when generals arrive while skipping dinner most days to keep one's weight down to 175 lbs. - many/most "serious" and "conservatory" tuba students might wish to start looking at other styles, and learning a few hundred songs in each of the styles that larger percentages of people patronize...If nothing else, perhaps they should learn the specific funky bass lines to the various strains of several dozen NOLA brass band tunes - as that seems to have become a nationwide "thing".)
To achieve being offered a job as (against dozens-or-a-hundred other applicants) "Principal Tuba of the East Mckeesport Philharmonia" - or even the Professor of Low Brass at The University of Maliprop (playing/teaching "classical" music) is to play/teach music for which the consumer market is extremely small, and - as society continues to degrade - continues to shrink.
sustainability of orchestra and university positions:
orchestras:
When (ex. of a very modest-paying full-time orchestra) there are 65 players each being paid (incl. benefits, etc.) $45,000, tickets are $40 - $60, there are tons of other large costs not even mentioned here, and two monthly concerts attach 450 - 500 attendees per concert, that is what can be identified as "non-sustainable" - particularly with those donating the majority of the funding required having been dying off - over the past two or three decades.
professors of low-brass:
More-and-more often, these positions are filled by adjuncts or one-year "visiting professors" (with no real institutional intentions of ever upgrading these positions).
more:
My own son-in-law is in a (not officially "big five", but) big-five-ish orchestra. With food/fuel/utilities/house prices having doubled in the same time period, my son-and-law has experienced TWO pay cuts. Full-time orchestra boards are actively hiring negotiators who are experts in strong-arming pay cuts to groups of employees, when contract negotiations come back around, each time. (OK... [1] The demand for orchestra musicians is - in reality - completely artificial, and [2] the market is flooded with competent applicants.)
https://wreg.com/news/local/memphis-sto ... ight-crime
If they donate to local orchestras, they may well actually not like (or even DISlike) classical music, and may well only be doing so to show (like Charlie the Tuna) that they have good taste, or - simply - to become politically connected (with the motive being eventually seeking a local political appointment or elected office).
(Even though we like PLAYING classical music - and might even like listening to others play it, occasionally - only a very small percentage of all people do, and even a smaller percentage would even consider leaving home to attend - even if free/top-notch - a classical music concert. If someone is young, spending several years of their own energetic/great-health youth and going into debt learning how to play the tuba - unless they're perfectly happy looking forward towards the community band/orchestra or school band director scene - or maybe playing the SSB and marches when generals arrive while skipping dinner most days to keep one's weight down to 175 lbs. - many/most "serious" and "conservatory" tuba students might wish to start looking at other styles, and learning a few hundred songs in each of the styles that larger percentages of people patronize...If nothing else, perhaps they should learn the specific funky bass lines to the various strains of several dozen NOLA brass band tunes - as that seems to have become a nationwide "thing".)
To achieve being offered a job as (against dozens-or-a-hundred other applicants) "Principal Tuba of the East Mckeesport Philharmonia" - or even the Professor of Low Brass at The University of Maliprop (playing/teaching "classical" music) is to play/teach music for which the consumer market is extremely small, and - as society continues to degrade - continues to shrink.
sustainability of orchestra and university positions:
orchestras:
When (ex. of a very modest-paying full-time orchestra) there are 65 players each being paid (incl. benefits, etc.) $45,000, tickets are $40 - $60, there are tons of other large costs not even mentioned here, and two monthly concerts attach 450 - 500 attendees per concert, that is what can be identified as "non-sustainable" - particularly with those donating the majority of the funding required having been dying off - over the past two or three decades.
professors of low-brass:
More-and-more often, these positions are filled by adjuncts or one-year "visiting professors" (with no real institutional intentions of ever upgrading these positions).
more:
My own son-in-law is in a (not officially "big five", but) big-five-ish orchestra. With food/fuel/utilities/house prices having doubled in the same time period, my son-and-law has experienced TWO pay cuts. Full-time orchestra boards are actively hiring negotiators who are experts in strong-arming pay cuts to groups of employees, when contract negotiations come back around, each time. (OK... [1] The demand for orchestra musicians is - in reality - completely artificial, and [2] the market is flooded with competent applicants.)
