Tag Archives: news

Orchestra News

San Diego Symphony Achieves Record Ticket Sales

The San Diego Symphony’s 2016-2017 season set a new sales record, with its classical series bringing in 15.6% more revenue than last year. The symphony’s musicians are members of Local 325 (San Diego, CA).

Combined with the summer 2016 outdoor series, the symphony also set an overall record for the number of paid admissions for an entire fiscal year, with 154,614 tickets sold. In addition to the record-setting sales, the classical series garnered 4,034 more paid admissions, representing an 8.2% increase over last season.

Four performances at the symphony’s 2,200-seat concert hall were sold out: both dates of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in March, Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton in October, and the Chamber Orchestra with conductor David Danzmayr in February. Conductor Edo de Waart’s three-performance run of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was symphony’s best-selling triple concert in its history, with more than 6,000 paid attendees.

In total, ticket revenue exceeded $6 million—just under 30% of the orchestra’s operating budget of $24 million. The orchestra attributes the increases to more aggressive and efficient use of technology, which has allowed it to create stronger relationships with patrons.

Orchestra News

2017 Player Conference Preview

TMA Conference  |  july 31-august 1 |  Phoenix, Arizona

The Theatre Musicians Association Conference will be held at the Crown Plaza Phoenix-Phx Airport. All members are welcome and encouraged to attend this once a year opportunity to network, share experiences, and work toward our common goals. For more information visit the website (afm-tma.org).

ROPA Conference  |  August 1-3  |  Phoenix, Arizona

The Regional Orchestra Players’ Association (ROPA) Conference will be held at the Westin Phoenix Downtown Hotel. A negotiations seminar will be held July 31. The conference is hosted by the Arizona Opera Orchestra and AFM Local 586 (Phoenix, AZ). All AFM members are welcome to attend the open sessions. For registration and information, visit the ROPA website (ropaweb.org).

OCSM Conference  |  August 14-18  |  Gatineau, Quebec

The Organization of Canadian Symphony Musicians (OCSM) Conference will be held at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in the national capital region. It will be hosted by Local 180 (Ottawa, ON). All musicians from member orchestras are welcome to attend the open sessions, beginning August 15.

ICSOM  |  August 23-26  |  Buffalo, New York

The International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) Conference will be held at the Adam’s Mark Hotel, hosted by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Local 92 (Buffalo, NY). Follow the conference links from the ICSOM website (icsom.org) for more information

Orchestra News

Minnesota Musicians Work with Students in Arts Access Project

In early May, students from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, presented a concert in the atrium of Orchestra Hall as part of the Minnesota Orchestra’s new Arts Access project. Over the course of the 2016-2017 season, the orchestra has partnered with ComMUSICation, an after-school choral youth-development program based in Saint Paul; and with the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. Minnesota Orchestra musicians support MacPhail’s programs by playing alongside students  and working with them to compose arrangements of folk songs. Students have performed in spaces at Orchestra Hall, and have received free tickets and busing to Minnesota Orchestra concerts.

Participating Minnesota Orchestra musicians and Local 30-73 (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN) members include bassist David Williamson, cellist Pitnarry Shin, violist Kenneth Freed, and violinists Pamela Arnstein, Catherine Schubilske, and Deborah Serafini. The partnership with the youth programs is planned to continue next season.

Orchestra News

Philadelphia Orchestra Broadcasts on SiriusXM Satellite Radio

The Philadelphia Orchestra is returning to national radio with a regular presence on satellite station SiriusXM. Broadcasts will air three times per week over the next year, rotating 26 concerts recorded in Verizon Hall. In addition to the concert performances, the broadcasts will feature Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin of Local 77 (Philadelphia, PA) speaking about his personal approach to the music.

The Philadelphia Orchestra, whose musicians are also members of Local 77, will be the first American orchestra to be heard in regularly scheduled programming on the station. The deal, which gives the orchestra a regular national radio presence for the first time in more than 25 years, was facilitated and is being underwritten by an orchestra donor.

SiriusXM is a paid service with a monthly fee, and reaches listeners across the US and Canada. With more than 34 million SiriusXM subscribers, the broadcasts are expected to expand the orchestra’s reach in terms of audience. 

Orchestra News

Sarasota Librarians Represented Under CBA for First Time

In November 2015, the librarians of the Sarasota Orchestra signed cards asking to be represented by the AFM and to be included in the collective bargaining unit of the Sarasota Orchestra. For more than a year, Florida Gulf Coast Local 427-721 officers and AFM representatives worked with the librarians and orchestra members to finalize an agreement with management. The resulting agreement fully recognizes the librarians as musicians and members of the orchestra, and provides coverage on par with the orchestra’s CBA.

Throughout the process, management proposed separate CBAs that would continue to treat the librarians as administrative staff, and through several sessions, rejected recognition of the librarians as musicians. With persistence and continued support from the AFM and their fellow musicians in the Sarasota Orchestra, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was ratified May 22. The MOU calls for immediate tenure for the principal and assistant principal librarians. Beginning September 1, librarians’ benefits and salaries will be equivalent to the instrumentalist musicians who share the same principal and assistant principal titles.

“We are grateful for the support of the AFM local and our colleagues in the orchestra as they have been pursuing this issue at the bargaining table for many years now. The warm reception we have already felt from our fellow musicians made this outcome even more meaningful,” says Sarasota Principal Librarian Justin Vibbard.

Librarians will have their own specific terms for obtaining tenure, but in virtually every other instance, will be treated as their fellow musicians under the terms of the CBA.“The members of the Sarasota Orchestra have long been grateful for the excellence and musical skill that our librarians are able to afford us onstage and off. We certainly would not be able to perform at the level we do without their far-reaching knowledge and hard work. It is with excitement that we officially welcome them to our orchestra as musicians and colleagues,” says Orchestra Committee Chair and Principal Percussion George Nickson.

Recent News

Seger Hits Diamond Milestone

Local 784 (Pontiac, MI) member Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits album has been certified Diamond, meaning it sold more than 10 million units in the US, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Only 90 artists have recordings that reached that milestone. To celebrate, Capitol/UMe has announced releases vinyl reissues of Greatest Hits and Seger’s 1969 debut album Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man.

Recent News

Morissette to Debut Musical

A new musical by Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA) member Alanis Morissette will debut next year at the American Repertory Theater (ART) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The show, Jagged Little Pill, will include well-known songs from the album, including “You Oughta Know” and “Ironic.” ART has been a stop for a number of shows that later went on to Broadway, including Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Finding Neverland, Pippen, and Waitress.

Recent News

UK Neuroscientists Identify Most Relaxing Tunes

Studies from Harvard and Stanford found that health issues resulting from job stress cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza. One easy and inexpensive way to help manage stress is to listen to music. UK neuroscientists have identified specific tunes that are the most efficient stress relievers.

In the study, participants listened to music while attempting to quickly solve difficult puzzles that caused stress measured through brain activity, heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing. Of the tested music, the song “Weightless” produced the greatest state of relaxation, reducing overall anxiety by 65% and physiological resting states by 35%.

This is not surprising since the song by Marconi Union was created with the collaboration of sound therapists and includes carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and base lines designed to slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure, and lower the stress hormone cortisol.

Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International says “Weightless” was so effective that it made people drowsy and probably shouldn’t be listened to while driving. The other songs that made the list were:

10) “We Can Fly,” by Rue du Soleil (Café Del Mar)

9) “Canzonetta Sull’aria,” by Mozart

8) “Someone Like You,” by Adele

7) “Pure Shores,” by All Saints

6) “Please Don’t Go,” by Barcelona

5) “Strawberry Swing,” by Coldplay

4) “Watermark,” by Enya

3) “Mellomaniac (Chill Out Mix),” by DJ Shah

2) “Electra,” by Airstream

1) “Weightless,” by Marconi Union

Recent News

Symphony for a Broken Orchestra Supports School Music Programs in Philadelphia

What do you do with more than 1,000 musical instruments in disrepair and no funds to fix them? That was the dilemma faced by The School District of Philadelphia. Now a new project, Symphony for a Broken Orchestra (symphonyforabrokenorchestra.org), funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and The Barra Foundation, seeks to remedy the situation. A city-wide effort initiated by Temple Contemporary in partnership with the school district, the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Boyer College of Music & Dance, the Curtis Institute, and numerous professional and amateur musicians, will see musicians perform a composition December 2017 written by David Lang specifically for the sounds of the instruments in their current broken state.

The brainchild of Tyler School of Art Temple Contemporary Director Robert Blackson, the project invites the public to “adopt” an instrument, effectively paying for its repair. All of the instruments available for adoption are pictured on the website, which also lists what school the instrument belongs at and what repairs it needs. You can also hear the sound the instrument is capable of making in its current state.

Recent News

Unpaid Brazilian Musicians Protest in Rio

Amidst the financial crisis in Brazil, the artists of the Brazilian Symphonic Orchestra and ballet of the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Theater, have not been paid their salaries since February. In May, they took to the streets to protest by giving a free concert in the plaza in front of the Municipal Theater. They handed out fliers denouncing “the complete disorganization, chaos, and financial misery caused by the continuous nonpayment of salaries.” Aside from creating awareness they asked for donations of non-perishable food items for colleagues going through very hard times.

“We’ve come to the point where some artists haven’t enough money to come to work. Many are in debt and are asking for loans to buy food,” says Pedro Olivero, president of the Municipal Theater Employees Union.