The Future of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

[BrushStart]

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100...ike-next-month

The Detroit News article above discussed the possible musician's strike and the financial situation of the DSO. Sadly, I've never been to an orchestra performance in Detroit, but hearing that they could be lost if the financial problems aren't resolved makes me want to experience it more than ever. Does anyone have any inside information on this situation or on the future viability of the DSO?

From what I know, the DSO is a world-class organization that would be difficult to replicate. If this gem were to be lost, I feel it would be a pretty big blow to our region and our culure. Some people believe that the DSO should fail if the "free market" deems it so, however, preserving these kinds of institutions, i.e. museums, art galleries, the opera, etc. is very important to maintaining Detroit's status as a cultural hub. I don't buy the sentiment that the DSO and similar institutions are "unimportant fancy stuff" that Metro Detroit can't afford.

[oldredfordette]

Go to the website and read for yourself.

http://detroitsymphonymusicians.org/whatwemustfix.html

[JBMcB]

It's a hard call. On the one hand, they are a fantastic orchestra and deserve a good compensation package and full financial support.

On the other, the economy is in the crapper, attendance and financial support is dwindling, and they are one of the best paid orchestras in the country [[the article states the base salary is $104K right now) Unless they have some pretty convincing evidence that the DSO management is squandering money, they are going to have to give something up for the orchestra to continue.

[cman710]

JBMcB, I think you have the right way of looking at things. Given that the economy is bad and that corporate sponsorship money has dried up, there are not many other options. At some point, the musicians will have to decide whether to stock to their current salary demands or take a cut. I imagine that some may be able to get better paying jobs elsewhere, while others may not, so it may not be a black and white issue.

[spirit2028]

I heard they had a brief concert at Campus Martius on Thursday 8/26. I would have enjoyed seeing that if I had not had previous plans. Did anyone go ? The main argument I hear from the musicians is that The symphony will drop from world-class status if their pay scale is not in the top 10 in the country. The symphony is also one of Detroit's best goodwill ambassadors when they trot around the globe doing concerts. In the best of times these would be valid points but obviously these are times when we as a whole are strugggling. The symphony has to live within their means and the musicians will ultimately have to decide whether they want to stay or go. How many dates does the symphony play in 1 season ? Is it possible to curtail all travel outside the U.S. until the economy improves. I would rather see the symphony play in the immediate metro area at various venues outside of Orchestra Hall. It would seem that the more they play the more revenue they would generate. I know in the past they did the 4th of July at Greenfield Village. What about Meadowbrook or Pine knob ? I'll be honest and say I'm not the type of person to get dressed up and attend a symphony but in a casual setting I might be inclined to get some vitamin "S". Appreciating some fine music would always be a good thing. What ideas does the symphony have for expanding their revenue base ? Corporate and public donations are down so they'll have to look at other revenue streams.

[lilpup]

On the other, the economy is in the crapper, attendance and financial support is dwindling, and they are one of the best paid orchestras in the country [[the article states the base salary is $104K right now) Unless they have some pretty convincing evidence that the DSO management is squandering money, they are going to have to give something up for the orchestra to continue.

Currently they are one of the top ten paid orchestras in the country. With the current contract offer they would drop to number 14.

[oldredfordette]

28%? Raise your hand if you would be willing to take a 28% pay cut.

[Gistok]

The Orchestra Hall expansion should have taken a page from the Detroit Opera House [[MOT)... build what you can afford. Although Michigan Opera Theatre employees also took a pay cut recently... they had the foresight to not get caught with a big mortgage on their expansions...

[DC48080]

28%? Raise your hand if you would be willing to take a 28% pay cut.

Well my pay has been reduced by approximate 33 percent in the last two years. I am not happy about it but it is what it is.

And by the way, my wife and I still contribute to the DSO, although not as generously as we would like to.

Hopefully those wonderful musicians will participate in a salary reduction for the good of the organization.

[Detroitej72]

I wouldn't be happy about a 28% pay cut, but they'd still be making almost $75,000 a year, which isn't too shabby in these harsh times. I mean, those jobs are dream jobs to most, and maybe they could propose in the contract that when corporate sponsorship picks up, they will restore the pay cuts.

[pffft]

They are willing to take a salary reduction, just not as deep as management wishes.

[bailey]

28%? Raise your hand if you would be willing to take a 28% pay cut.

if the choice was between 28% and 100% [[as in NO JOB) I think I'd figure out how to manage.

Also, I wouldn't "expect" any job security working in a luxury/entertainment industry.

[JBMcB]

28%? Raise your hand if you would be willing to take a 28% pay cut.

If the options were $75,000 a year [[base salary with benefits) and nothing, I'd go for the $75K a year. That's a damn good salary in this area, especially in this economic climate.

I took a pay cut a few years ago, as did a lot of people I know. The economy sucks, it happens every now and then.

[pffft]

Again, they're willing to take a pay cut.

What I'm wondering is, where are the entrepreneurs, the Edsel Ford types, who use their money to prop up cultural institutions in hard times? Today's rich folk seem to be a little more insular and less concerned with the general good. Add to that, we aren't all supporting [[i.e., attending) the symphony in large enough numbers, although we all vaguely want it to survive. I do buy tickets and go, but I know I should do more

[BrushStart]

Again, they're willing to take a pay cut.

What I'm wondering is, where are the entrepreneurs, the Edsel Ford types, who use their money to prop up cultural institutions in hard times? Today's rich folk seem to be a little more insular and less concerned with the general good. Add to that, we aren't all supporting [[i.e., attending) the symphony in large enough numbers, although we all vaguely want it to survive. I do buy tickets and go, but I know I should do more

Credited. I feel like instead of spending money on movie rentals, I could have attended the orchestra and gotten much more out of it than 1.5 hours of my life wasted on another lousy action flick. Ironically, the Orchestra Hall banner-picture is at the top of the page as I write this.

[DetroitPlanner]

The DSO is not a full-time job, but comes with full-time pay and benefits. Many people who are performers also teach music. They make a considerable amount of under the table money by having the DSO as a credential. Makes one wonder if the Max addition was a mistake as the money could have gone towards operations instead.

[bailey]

Credited. I feel like instead of spending money on movie rentals, I could have attended the orchestra and gotten much more out of it than 1.5 hours of my life wasted on another lousy action flick. Ironically, the Orchestra Hall banner-picture is at the top of the page as I write this.

Ok.. well netflix is 10 bucks a month. What are tiger's tickets? What are lions tickets? how much is parking? are you going to be eating out as well? One DSO ticket is around $50. How many times do you really expect people to go? In a area hemorrhaging jobs and people and one that is far more interested in sports than a night at the symphony, I have zero sympathy for a violinist getting pissy that she doesn't make 6 figures off of a niche talent in a region that could give a shit about her niche. Go on strike, see if anyone notices.

The purchase of a ticket to the DSO is a 'luxury item", just like those lions or tigers tickets are. The DSO and the artists' union need to face the same reality everyone else has around here. Maybe the Detroit market simply can not support it anymore? Sad thing. More sad is I'd bet 95% of the local populous wouldn't notice if it suddenly didn't exist at all.

[Danny]

Well that's the union for you all. The DSO orchestra want more money, benifits, more health care coverage. Anything else will a breach of contract.

WORD FROM THE STREET PROPHET

As the DSO union plays a sour note when changing their tune.

Neda, I miss you so.

[Det_ard]

How exactly do the "layoff weeks" affect pay? If they're laid off for 13 weeks do they still get the full salary [[$104K, $74K, whatever it is) or do they get 39/52 of that salary for the year? And what are these "weeks of service other than playing an instrument"? Paid, or ???

What the 2 sides are proposing

Lawrence B. Johnson / Special to The Detroit News

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has presented the musicians' union with two offers for a three-year contract. The current offer is designated Proposal A.
If an agreement cannot be negotiated based on Proposal A by Aug. 28, one day before the musicians' contract expires, DSO management has informed the union Proposal B will become the offer of record.
At that point, the musicians would need to agree to the terms of Proposal B or, if management declines to negotiate further, strike.
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Proposal A provides, among other things:

• Wage reduction from $104,650 to $74,880 the first year, rising to $79,950 in the third year.
• Thirteen weeks layoff in the first and second years, 11 layoff weeks in the third year.
• Reduction from the current contract provision of 96 full-time musicians to 82 the first year, then 84 in the second and third years. The actual number of musicians now on the payroll is 84. The remaining positions are vacant.
• Pension freeze.
• Maximum of three weeks of services other than playing an instrument.
Proposal B:

• Wage reduction to $70,200 in the first year, rising to $73,800 in the third year. A different salary for new members of the orchestra, starting at $63,000.
• Sixteen layoff weeks in all three years.
• Eighty-five full-time musicians in all three years.
• Pension freeze.
• Optional weeks of services other than playing an instrument.
Musicians' union offer:

• Wages of $82,000 in the first year, rising to $96,600 in the third year.
• Eleven weeks layoff the first year, 8 weeks the second year, 6 weeks the third.
• Eighty-two musicians the first year, 85 the second year, 88 the third year.
• All members of the orchestra included in an active pension plan.
• Equal financial sacrifices by upper management.
• Musicians' review of management performance.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100...#ixzz0y6XEdxoY

[detroitbob]

If the $220 million dollar restoration/addition project was underwritten by Max Fischer and Peter Cummings as described in the article and excerpt below, how did the DSOH end up with 'construction bonds' on the project? Sounds like the Executive Committee of the Board has explaining to do. If the current Board can not personally raise or get commitments to fund the current season, they are ineffectual.

https://letterpress.uchicago.edu/ind...viewFile/30/43

In 2003, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall Association
completed another round of renovations and additions to Orchestra Hall [[this time to the tune
of $220 million), resulting in the Max M. Fischer Music Hall, which includes 135,000 additional
square feet of performance, rehearsal, and administrative space. The renovation was underwritten
by the same Max Fischer who was an original member of “The Detroit Renaissance,” and was
completed at the insistence of his son-in-law and former DSO Board chairman, Peter D.
Cummings. According to Cummings,
the thesis [for the project] was that in many ways the challenges and problems of the Detroit
Symphony were urban challenges, neighborhood challenges…. We’ve gone from being an arts
organization focused inward to a cultural citizen looking outward. We’re creating a hive of

activity here, and the more we have, the more it will beget.66

[rooms222]

• SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

Disaster in Detroit

The city's orchestra is under threat. Does anyone care?

• By TERRY TEACHOUT

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is staring into the abyss. In order to survive a fix-it-or-else financial crisis—the DSO is expected to run up a $9 million operating deficit by the end of 2010—the management wants to slash the pay of its musicians by nearly 30%. The musicians have responded by voting to authorize a strike, and it is widely feared that this may lead to the orchestra's demise.
Does anybody care? Yes—but probably not enough to do anything about it.
The numbers tell the tale: Nearly two million people lived in Detroit in 1950. The current population is 800,000. Forty of the city's 140 square miles are vacant. Downsizing is the name of the save-Detroit game, and Mayor Dave Bing, who is looking at an $85 million budget deficit, wants to slash civic services drastically and encourage Detroit's remaining residents to cluster in the healthiest of its surviving neighborhoods.
Can a once-great city that is now the size of Austin, Texas, afford a top-rank symphony orchestra with a 52-week season? Does it even want one? The DSO, after all, is not the only one of Detroit's old-line high-culture institutions that is sweating bullets. The Detroit Institute of Arts and the Michigan Opera Theater are also in trouble, and the editorial page of the Detroit News recently declared that Detroit is "no longer a top 10 city by any measure. The reality may be that this region can no longer support a world class orchestra, or art museum, or opera company. . . . They are remnants of an era when the city was awash in automotive cash."
Brian Dickerson, the deputy editorial-page editor of the Detroit Free Press, reacted angrily in a column published last month to what he called the "elegiac resignation" of this editorial: "Some sneer that Detroit's unwashed masses can no longer discern the difference between a great orchestra and a mediocre one. . . . What's incredible, and ineffably sad, is the complacency with which Detroiters are shrugging off the disintegration of a cultural infrastructure our predecessors spent the entire 20th century putting in place." But it isn't complacent to admit that Detroit may no longer be able to afford the DSO—or that the city's "unwashed masses" won't lose any sleep if the orchestra is forced to close its doors.
As I reported in this column in June, regional orchestras all over America are struggling to stay afloat. Some have disbanded, while others are seeking out new audiences. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, for example, faced up to the long-term decline of Newark, its home, by reconfiguring itself as a state-wide group that gives concerts in seven different cities. That's one of the reasons why the orchestra has clawed its way back from near-bankruptcy and has accumulated nearly 80% of the $32 million in capital that is its current capital fund-raising goal.
What makes the Detroit Symphony different is that it is not a provincial ensemble. It's long been ranked as one of America's top 10 symphony orchestras, in terms of both pay scale and artistic quality. Many of the recordings that the DSO made for Mercury in the '50s and '60s remain in print to this day. But what few seem to want to admit other than euphemistically is that comparatively few of the citizens of Detroit appear to be willing to pick up the tab for such an ensemble. In a city that is itself in desperate financial straits, the care and feeding of a major orchestra is not a priority.
I agree with those musicians who argue that cutting the average salary of a DSO player from $104,650 to $75,000 will transform the orchestra beyond recognition. The DSO will inevitably lose its best members and won't be able to attract replacements of comparable quality. But the players' decision to respond to the orchestra's financial crisis by voting to strike is a classic symptom of the cultural-entitlement mentality—the assumption that artists ought to be paid what they "deserve" to make, even when the community in which they live and work places a significantly lower value on their services. Any economist can tell you what has happened: In Detroit, being a classical instrumentalist is no longer an upper-middle-class job.
We like to think that great symphony orchestras and museums are permanent monuments to the enduring power and significance of art, but in the 21st century, we are going to learn the hard way that this is simply not true. Great high-culture institutions reflect the fundamental character of a city. In America, most of these institutions were founded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as manifestations of civic pride. But when a city's character undergoes profound changes, as has happened in Detroit, the institutions are bound to reflect that transformation. One way or another, they'll follow the money—and if there is no money to follow, they'll go out of business. The sad truth is that the Detroit Symphony is no more "permanent" than . . . well, your average auto company.
—Mr. Teachout, the Journal's drama critic, writes "Sightings" every other Saturday. He is the author of "Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong." Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.

[EastSider]

Since when do we wring our hands about what will happen to someone with a starting salary of $104,000?

That question is the heart of which way this battle will go. Good luck to the musicians trying to sway public support in their favor. Their starting salary is more than my wife and me combined, with a college degree and 15 years on the job.

[DetroitPole]

It is simply fantastic that our roid-raging woman-beating athletes and corrupt, exploiting, inept CEO's and bankers can make millions per year and no one bats an eye, yet when people who create art of incredible beauty we resent their salaries. Quite a country we live in. Our priorities are screwed up.

[michiganbass]

I am a member of the DSO. We play over 200 performances a year. We mostly play in Orchestra Hall because it has extraordinary acoustics. But we play many concerts around the Detroit Metro area. This summer we played 4 nights at Greenfield Village for over 30,000 people, 3 free concerts in the metro parks, 2 nights at the Edsel Ford estate, 5 night at Meadowbrook, plus a number of community concerts. Its too bad that the focus all seems to be about the money. We understand that the economy is bad but the DSO brings over a 1/2 million people into downtown Detroit every year. Aside from the jobs the the DSO is creating directly, there's all the economic activity that those 1/2 million people are creating. A great orchestra like the DSO is an attraction and Detroit needs those more than ever. If the Tigers or any of our sports teams were to drop to a minor league status I think that would hurt the economy even more. That's our concern. Its about a whole lot more than the money we make. Yes, we are willing to take huge cuts. We offered 22% but think its very important to have at least a partial recovery so we can sustain the draw of the Detroit Symphony name. For those that haven't heard us in our hall you are most welcome to visit. And, by the way, support all your arts institutions. They're more important than you realize and also more enjoyable. Thank you!

[oldredfordette]

Solidarity with you, michiganbass. Good luck.