By Benedict Goodfriend
Goodfriend is a concert violinist and member of the Kandinsky Trio. He lives in Roanoke.
I have returned to a subject about which I had done some research a few years ago concerning the financial structure of regional symphony orchestras. I approach this subject from a vantage point of having friends and colleagues that play for these organizations and from teaching students who intend to make a career in music performance. It is common knowledge that it is becoming more and more difficult to make a living as a performer, and I see a generation coming out of music schools that eek out a bare bones living traveling from regional orchestra to regional orchestra, juggling sometimes as many as four or five.
Every community takes pride in its local orchestra, and I have found the perception of what the community imagines its orchestra musicians are paid is dramatically different from the reality. To understand the hierarchy of American orchestras it is instructive to parallel them with professional sports teams. One could call 20 or so U.S. Orchestras the major leagues. The high end of this group would be Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, LA Philharmonic and San Francisco, which pay average section player salaries of $120,000-$145,000. The lower end would include Houston, Dallas, National Symphony and a number of other orchestras paying in the $60,000-$80,000 range. All of these orchestras tour nationally and internationally. The minor leagues could include, at the triple A level, orchestras such as Rochester, New York, and Indianapolis, Indiana, down to single A level, with salaries of $20,000-$35,000, including orchestras like Richmond, Virginia Symphony, Jacksonville, and Charlotte.
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The regional orchestras are professional but part-time, (although some do have some full-time core members.)
The departure point of my analysis was the simple question “What percentage of an orchestra’s budget is devoted to paying the orchestra members?”
A conundrum in exposing injustices that, in some cases, reach fraud and scam proportions is the danger of doing more harm than good; a danger of hurting the very people that one is trying to help. So, for the time being, my tact will be to not identify individual orchestras by name. I have studied 20 regional orchestras with budgets ranging from $1–2.5 million. I will discuss my findings in regards to averages, and compare the top and bottom on the list. Let us call them Orchestra A and Orchestra B.
Both Orchestra A and B have budgets in the middle of the list ($1.8 million).
The average percentage of the budget that pays the orchestra musicians (not including conductor or guest artists) is in the vicinity of 30 percent. Orchestra A pays 38 percent, Orchestra B percent 13 percent...yes it is not a typo, it is 13 cents on the dollar.
Regarding the total amount that the average contract player can expect to make in a season, the average is $5,000. Orchestra A; $7,400, Orchestra B; $2,500.
Looking at salary allocations, on average, the percentage of the combined salary of the conductor and executive director constitutes 34 percent of the entire orchestra’s salary, With Orchestra A it is 26 percent. As to Orchestra B, the conductor and executive director of make as much as the entire orchestra musicians combined, 100 percent! Analysis of the makeup of all monies allocated to salaries shows that an average of 60 percent of that budget pays the orchestra musicians. In Orchestra A that ratio is 74 percent. Not surprisingly, Orchestra B pays the orchestra only 33 percent of the budget, with a combined staff and other employee salaries twice that of the entire orchestra. Looking at the percentage of the whole budget that pays all salaries, the average is 50 percent, Orchestra A; 51 percent, Orchestra B 37 percent.
Both Orchestra A and B are located in communities where the cost of living is relatively cheap. What could orchestra B be doing with all of that extra money? A look at the amount of guest artist monies spent shows that they spend very little on that, indeed rarely engaging classical artists from the upper echelons of the solo circuit, relying instead on internal orchestra musicians or other friends. There is nothing unusual in the size or scope of the orchestra’s productions that could account for such a discrepancy. One can argue whether or not 30 percent of the budget for the musicians is too little but there is no doubt in my mind that 13 percent borders on fraud. In the arts we are fighting against diminishing interest and support from society. It is devastating when the enemy is from within.