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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
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Location: Tempe, Arizona
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 Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:51 am Post subject: 52 Week Orchestras |
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Roger,
Based on comments from another post you were asked about how many 52 week orchestras perform in Germany.
| Quote: | Hiya, Don!
Lemme see: I think Berlin has six full-time orchestras. Munich has four. Hamburg has three, as does Frankfurt, and Cologne. Hanover has two. Düsseldorf and Duisburg have to make do with one each. One also has to consider the fact that of all of the above; only Berlin supports more than one city orchestra, the others having city, radio, and privately funded orchestras in the same city. |
I know when I was working on my Orchestra Rosters project I was amazed to discover that London had so many world class, full time orchestras, but I had never really considered how many other cites had more than one “52 week” orchestra.
In fact, I’m not even sure how many of the orchestras on the lists that I’ve put together are 52 week orchestras. I know that the Phoenix Symphony has their summers off and players go to many other summer festivals (we see several players at the Santa Fe Opera each summer).
Maybe we could use this folder to put together a list of the 52 week orchestras throughout the world. Based on what you wrote about Germany, the list will be REALLY long, but it would be fun to see how many orchestral players around the world have a year round position.
Could you start by listing the names of the orchestras in each of the cities that you mentioned in your post above? I wouldn’t even know how to start this list given that many of the non-US orchestra web sites that I’ve been to are not in English.
Berlin
Munich
Hamburg
Frankfurt
Cologne
Düsseldorf
Duisburg
Could someone also do this for the US? Richard, maybe you could do a little research for us? Others in Mexico (johntpt, etc.), and Canada (NE again), and other countries give us a breakdown of the 52 week orchestra in your country?
Once we have a number of orchestras listed I could certainly put them together in a comprehensive list.
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest |
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joebob
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Joined: 13 Jul 2006
Posts: 16
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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| I think more important than number of weeks in a season is the annual minimum salary. Some orchestras with 52 week seasons actually have a lower annual salary than some other orchestras with only 40 or so weeks. |
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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4221
Location: Tempe, Arizona
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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I received a message from a TH member from Mexico with a great start to our list.
| Quote: |
Here’s a list off the top of my head of full time orchestras in Mexico. I don't want to say 52 week, because we all get vacations, some very substantial ones. But we are fully employed and paid for the whole year. You will see some University orchestras listed. They are not student ensembles. In some places, the local orchestra "belongs" to the university. |
MEXICO
Orchestra-City, State
Symphony Orchestra of Yucatan - Merida, Yucatan
Symphony Orchestra of Xalapa - Xalapa, Veracruz
State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra - Toluca, State of Mexico
Mexico City Philharmonic - Federal District, Mexico City
UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra - Federal District, Mexico City
National Symphony Orchestra - Federal District, Mexico City
University of Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra-Guanajuato, Guanajuato
Arts Orchestra of Sinaloa-Culiacan, Sinaloa
Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra-Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes
University of Nuevo Laredo Symphony Orchestra-Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo
Acapulco Symphony Orchestra-Acapulco, Guerrero
Queretaro Philharmonic Orchestra-Queretaro, Queretaro
Jalisco Philharmonic-Guadalajara, Jalisco
I’ll try and provide links to these groups (to the trumpet section if they have a separate page) in the near future.
Nice start!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest
Last edited by Derek Reaban on Fri Feb 29, 2008 10:09 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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robert_white
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Joined: 19 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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| joebob wrote: | | I think more important than number of weeks in a season is the annual minimum salary. Some orchestras with 52 week seasons actually have a lower annual salary than some other orchestras with only 40 or so weeks. |
Here are the ICSOM orchestras with 52 week seasons. I'm fairly certain that no ROPA orchestras have year-round contracts, so I didn't bother to look - someone correct me if that's wrong. A couple of these groups have furlough weeks in the current CBA, but if they were previously 52 weeks, I included them.
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago
Cincinnatti
Cleveland
Dallas
Detroit
Ft Worth
Houston
Indianapolis
Los Angeles
Metropolitan Opera
Minnesota
National
New York Phil
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
San Francisco
Utah
All of these groups have a base salary of at least $55,000/yr. Nearly allare quite a bit higher (75K and up).
As far as I can tell, the only ICSOM group that pays significantly more than that for fewer weeks is SF Opera. Only a couple of ICSOM orchestras with shorter seasons pay right around 60K, or will by the end of their current CBA (Milwaukee, Nashville...).
They're not ICSOM groups, but Toronto and Montreal pay a bit more than this (72K and 68K, approximately) with slightly shorter seasons (42 and 46 weeks). |
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joebob
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks Robert for putting together all that info. Utah and Ft. Worth are at the low end of 52 week orchestra annual pay. They pay a similar salary to Milwaukee which is around 40 weeks. St. Louis pays in the 70-75 K range for around 42 weeks. Detroit is at 49 weeks this season and they pay 95K - they'll be going up to 50 weeks next season and 52 one after that. The question is: is it better from the musicians' standpoint to have a 52 week season with lower weekly pay, or to make the same annual salary for less weeks? On the surface it seems better to get paid the same for less work, but I'm wondering how that affects future negotiations. |
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Sandi
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tptfrbrains
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Posts: 1375
Location: Moers, Germany
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:24 am Post subject: |
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I almost fainted with relief when I saw that Sandi did all of my work for me - I honestly didn't even know where to begin. I might try to get a list of all of the orchestras in Germany from our union, to print here, if it's useful.
By the way, most of the orchestras in Sandi's list, in fact, all union orchestras in Germany are paid for thirteen months a year over a twelve month period (33% of one month's pay at Christmas, and 66% before the summer vacation) and the orchestras are entitled to 45 days of vacation. Slight variations of this have been approved over the past few years according to the financial health of the various cities that employ the orchestras, but that would be the norm.
I'm seated, the third person from the left, in the picture in the link to my orchestra - the gray-haired guy with the stupid grin on his face. It was also my idea to pile all of the horns on top of each other, and I was surprised how many of my colleagues were hesitant to do so.
r. |
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Athos
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Location: St Louis
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 7:13 am Post subject: |
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| joebob wrote: | | Thanks Robert for putting together all that info. Utah and Ft. Worth are at the low end of 52 week orchestra annual pay. They pay a similar salary to Milwaukee which is around 40 weeks. St. Louis pays in the 70-75 K range for around 42 weeks. Detroit is at 49 weeks this season and they pay 95K - they'll be going up to 50 weeks next season and 52 one after that. The question is: is it better from the musicians' standpoint to have a 52 week season with lower weekly pay, or to make the same annual salary for less weeks? On the surface it seems better to get paid the same for less work, but I'm wondering how that affects future negotiations. |
It is better to get paid more for the work you do. A ten-week summer off gives me the chance to vacation, or earn money elsewhere. Making the same money for more work does not in any way benefit the musicians in negotiations; in fact, it is detrimental. |
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Pete Anderson
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Joined: 21 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:49 am Post subject: |
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| tptfrbrains wrote: | | By the way, most of the orchestras in Sandi's list, in fact, all union orchestras in Germany are paid for thirteen months a year over a twelve month period (33% of one month's pay at Christmas, and 66% before the summer vacation) and the orchestras are entitled to 45 days of vacation. Slight variations of this have been approved over the past few years according to the financial health of the various cities that employ the orchestras, but that would be the norm. |
So basically what you're saying is that we should all start learning to speak German?  |
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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
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Location: Tempe, Arizona
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| Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:10 am Post subject: |
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Sandi,
Wow! The list of orchestras and specific links that you provided is fantastic. I can’t even imagine how much time it must have taken to do this work!
I spent a lot of time on Friday evening working on the finding some of the web sites for the “orquesta sinfonicas” from Mexico. Talk about slow going since I don’t speak the language. I managed to find six links and you did more than 10 times that! Wow!
I’m wondering how best to incorporate this information in the Orchestral Rosters project. Clearly, one person can’t hope to research all this information, or even keep up with changes from one year to the next. I know, because I’ve fallen behind on the lists that we have on this site (just over a hundred), and now with just two more countries there must be another hundred to need to research and then update as the years pass. The language barrier is another impasse that I’m not sure how to get around.
Anyway, I’ll think about going through and posting at least the current sections from these orchestras along with the links that you’ve provided. I’ll have to rethink the “Table of Contents” page because scrolling through all of these orchestras in a single column (in one post) would be difficult from a formatting perspective.
Great stuff! Thanks for helping out with this “52 Week Orchestra” project.
Roger,
Love the picture of your brass section!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest |
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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4221
Location: Tempe, Arizona
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:58 am Post subject: |
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Sandi,
I included a link to the great post that you included here in the table of contents that I have for the orchestral rosters. It's a start at least. Maybe in the future I'll get around to building out some of these pages.
Roger,
Who was in the prinpical in your orchestra before you? Who would I contact to get some "achive" information about principal trumpet players?
Thanks!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest |
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tptfrbrains
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Joined: 05 Jan 2007
Posts: 1375
Location: Moers, Germany
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| Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:19 am Post subject: |
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Derek,
Here are some very incomplete and approximate dates:
Roger Zacks: 1987 - Present
Bruno Feldkircher: 2005-2006
Manuel Viehmann: 2004-2006 (substitute)
Michael Lakota. 2002-2004 (substitute)
Timothy Lawler: 1980 - 1990 - Co- Principal
Wolfgang Pohle: 1977 - 1987 - from 1980 Co-Principal
Jan Vlieschouwer: 1973 - 1980
Joseph Schmelzer: 1956 - 1963
Klaus Retelsdorff: 1927 - 1935
1921 - 1927: Harry Königsberg
These dates are horribly innacurate and incomplete. I'll see if I can get some better information.
r. |
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