Reporter.Please Don'tTellMe ChicagoSym Musicians Have itEasy

[alexwill]

If the article is blocked for you. Right click on the link below....then click on "Open in an Incognito Tab" or copy and paste the link below into an incognito tab, and you should be able to read it....

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/reich/ct-ae-cso-musicians-challenges-reich-0331-story.html

[John Mohan]

Excellent article! I was quite dismayed as I listened to a (normally sensible) morning talk radio show last week on my way to my hospital clinical where the hosts and all the callers were saying the most ignorant, ridiculous things about the striking musicians. Thinking back on how I practiced six hours a day, seven days a week, including on vacations from my teens until nearly the end of my twenties while these radio listeners did whatever they wanted to do allowed me to be not just sympathetic, but empathetic to the musicians of the CSO. If the radio hosts and listeners were less ignorant they could at least have expressed sympathy for the musicians. These fools also love the fact that we have one of the world's greatest orchestras, but seem to think the musicians will just stay put while other orchestras raise their pay levels. The CSO is losing its best musicians (#ChrisMartin) and if the pay isn't in line with the other top level orchestras, the CSO will simply cease to be a top level orchestra.

[trumpetera]

The Chicago Tribune website is ”unavailable in most european countries”. Is there any chance of copy-paste, please?
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[roccotrumpetsiffredi]

Ahh, what a soft and easy life the striking Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians lead!

They show up for a concert, play for a couple of hours, then go home and relax until the next one. For these few hours of work they’re paid handsomely – and just for doing something they love!


What’s wrong with these “prima donnas”?

I put that term in quotes because it’s drawn from one of many messages I’ve received – via email and in person – articulating the underinformed sentiments referenced above. Ever since the CSO musicians went on strike on March 10, some people have been complaining to me about the pampered, “privileged” CSO.


Whether you side with musicians or management, can we agree on at least one thing? These musicians’ “privileges” are hard won – every day, week, month and year of their professional lives (and long before and after).

As one correspondent astutely put it, the problem is that these great artists make their work look easy. This leaves the general public unaware of the vicissitudes of performing classical music.


I know, because I’ve been there – as a piano performance major at Northwestern University’s School of Music and as a graduate student there in music theory and history. If CSO skeptics understood a fraction of the artistic and technical challenges involved in this fiercely demanding musical art form, they might soft-pedal their disdain.

For long before any of these musicians won a coveted spot in this orchestra – widely acknowledged as one of the greatest in the world – they spent decades struggling to master their instruments. While most kids were out playing ball or getting into mischief, the young musicians-to-be were sequestered at home rehearsing scales and arpeggios ad nauseam.

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When they finally were good enough to get into a conservatory or music school, the stakes shot up. Because in addition to playing ever more complex repertoire to meet ever-rising expectations, they had to learn several centuries’ worth of music history, understand arcane aspects of harmony and rhythm and, yes, learn to listen. Really listen.

At Northwestern – as at most major institutions – that meant two years of ear training. In the first week, you’re asked to identify any pitch played on the piano without seeing the keyboard. By the end of the two years, you’re taking dictation while music of Stravinsky is playing on a sound system. Have you ever tried scribbling notes while listening to a complex orchestral score? Unless you have perfect pitch (which, alas, I do not), it’s hard.

If you don’t pass ear training, you don’t get a music degree. Period.

Then comes time to audition for an orchestra. In the case of the CSO, literally hundreds are competing against you for a single position.


If you get in – thanks to all those years of practicing, all those parties and outings missed, all that sacrifice – you finally can sit back, relax and count up those nice paychecks, right?

Not exactly.

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For in an ensemble of the CSO’s stature, the musicians must meet not only the standards of one of the world’s most revered conductors – Riccardo Muti, their music director – but also those of their colleagues at adjacent music stands. Intonation, phrasing, articulation, timbre, ornamentation, balance, synchronicity, period style – these considerations, and others, must be applied to every phrase these musicians play.

Unlike improvised jazz, which poses its own terrifying obstacles, the world of classical music is predicated mostly on historic repertoire known note-for-note around the world. The slightest flaw stands out. And on the less frequent occasions when new scores are on the program, the musicians must read them cold during a couple of brief rehearsals before a premiere.

Then there’s the matter of vacations. Have you ever taken a couple or a few weeks off to just get away from it all? Most musicians at this level cannot do that – they’ve got to keep their fingers limber. A few days away from an instrument immediately takes a toll on technique and tone. And unlike, say, professional athletes who get paid millions and cash out at or near middle age, the musicians will need to stay in fighting form for decades if they hope to hold onto their positions.

One other thing: If you cut yourself cooking or gardening, you go to the ER and get yourself patched up. A finger injury that’s a slight inconvenience to most of us can be career-ending for a world-class musician. Because these artists’ primary instruments aren’t really the costly fiddles they hold under their chins, or the fussy reeds they bring to their lips, but their hands and mouths and feet and faces. A mishap on the human body is a potential catastrophe for musicians who play at this level of infinitesimally detailed technical control.

So when observers tell me they have no “sympathy” for these musicians, I like to point out that sympathy isn’t what’s required. Context is.

It’s true, as some people have said to me, that what these musicians do isn’t factory work, where people toil on their feet for grueling hours every day at low wages and with meager – if any – benefits. But no one is saying it is.

The more salient point is that playing at the CSO’s level places lifelong burdens on musicians that are invisible to casual concertgoers.

Unless you know and acknowledge what these artists must achieve throughout their careers, and at what cost, you don’t understand the situation.

Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.

hreich@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @howardreich

[LaTrompeta]

Most non-musicians will not appreciate the time/energy dedication it takes to be at the level of a CSO musician. I suspect 8 hours a day + for many years is not unreasonable.

Still, the market is the market. What someone "deserves" and what they can realistically earn is often not the same.
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[HERMOKIWI]

The article is very fair. It's doubtful that many people outside of the musician community understand the difficulties, risks and commitments necessary for a musician to reach the level required to be playing in the CSO.

That being said, the primary problem with public perception/sympathy for CSO musicians is that the average household income in the United States was $62,175 as of June, 2018 while CSO compensation was $160,000+.

It's human nature that the average household making $62,175 isn't going to be particularly sympathetic to people making $160,000 even if the higher compensated people are employed as nitroglycerin truck drivers, human cannonballs or leaky submarine testers, let alone musicians in an orchestra.

What average households see is that the musicians are already making 250% of what those households are making and that those households put in the same amount of time on the job as the musicians do. It's a very difficult thing to overcome in terms of public relations/garnering public support for the CSO musicians.

It's common for management and employees to get into a public relations shouting match when there is a strike. Each accuse the other of being greedy and unreasonable and then, when the strike is over, both sides come out with press releases explaining how they won and the other side lost.

What will be the outcome of this? Management will prevail on some points and the employees will prevail on some points. Then everyone will come back together as a family. Whether it's a happy family remains to be seen.
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HERMOKIWI

[LaTrompeta]

A lot of people will see this as dysfunctionalality of an organization and entitlement sentiment...and can you blame them? Is this strike comparable to those of the 19th and 20th century industrial laborers who wanted tolerable working conditions?

Regardless of who "wins," the long-term impact could be detrimental.
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[Speed]

Which seems to be the bigger sticking point in the negotiations, present compensation or future pension benefits?

Take care,
Marc Speed

[O00Joe]

LOL and Michael Phelps just does some laps at the pool every day why is he such a big deal?
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[JayV]

He left out the years of toil and insecurity in low-wage gigs many musicians in top orchestras endure before they win a good job. Only a few people in those chairs hopped right from school into a high-paying full time gig.

There are people who went to the same schools, played at the same festivals, and studied with the same teachers as the people in the top orchestras who sometimes spend many years or their entire careers making literally 1/10th of the CSO base pay. Many others in reputable full-time orchestras make less than 50% of that. There is only a tiny handful of ensembles in the world offering anywhere near that level of pay.

I support the musicians 100% but the hard truth here is that there really aren't a lot of places for these musicians to go to earn a higher wage. They can't ALL go to LA or San Francisco, and besides that, it's questionable whether those orchestras actually pay more when you take into account the cost of living differential.

In a sense, the CSO musicians are extremely under paid. Top lawyers, executives, consultants, surgeons, and other high-performers are making >$300k. In another sense, they are among the top 0.01% of classical musicians and top 10% of US households in general.

I've been a dues paying member of the AFM for 10+ years but sometimes I wonder if the union model makes sense for classical musicians. Orchestra players were among the very last musicians in this country to join the AFM, it was designed to protect "working stiff" dance band, burlesque, vaudeville, bar, and show band players. Virtually all of those gigs are long gone though they used to be huge sources of employment, and the remaining work (cruises, shows) is often no longer union.

The people in the top orchestras in the world are a lot less like "working stiff" musicians and a lot more like Olympic athletes. They are unique artists offering their highly developed and specialized skills. Other similarly skilled professionals don't usually have a union, rather they have professional organizations and/or licensing authorities to act as "gatekeepers" of quality, ethics, and ideas about fair compensation.

I often think musicians allow themselves to be abused and are too afraid to be belligerent in demanding fair treatment for themselves, and I think the tradition of collective bargaining is part of the problem in the sense that it doesn't allow individuals to present their unique value to the institution and stand up for themselves as individual artists. Musicians, unlike lawyers and business execs, aren't taught from early in their training to demand compensation. I'd love to see an orchestral world where the players negotiate like the music directors and sign specific term/compensation packages for themselves. Someday I'd love to read a headline like "So-and-so signs a 3 year, $4 million contract to play principal kazoo with the Big-City-Philharmonic" just like we see in the sports pages.

[Trumpetingbynurture]

[Trumpetingbynurture]

[laser170323]

The free market is a bitch. But the alternatives are all worse.