Other people saying smart stuff about the orchestra

[mrissa]

If you care about the Minnesota Orchestra lockout, you should probably be reading Emily anyway, but here’s a really good one. Her incredulous rage is my incredulous rage. Other letters are worthwhile, too.

In the last week, the Orchestra Board has openly declared their willingness to treat us as commodities. I don’t mean “us,” the orchestra

Comments

[mrissa]

When they started talking about how musicians and conductors could be replaced, as though the kind of replacement they're talking about is completely trivial and would have no effect on the orchestra.

[blue_hat_guru]

Thank you for these links.

This situation seems to be a remarkable* distillation/microcosm of the general arrogance and incompetence of the financial masters of our society.

*In the sense of clarity, not uniqueness.

[zalena]

I've been following your posts and contrasting what I hear from you about the Minnesota Orchestra with what I know about what's been happening at SFO where my mom sings with the chorus.

What just kills me is the same issue with Netherlands RFO... an institution founded in the ashes of WWII that broadcast live orchestral music when so much was in ruins. Those were times of true austerity, and yet NOW we're having trouble with funding?

One of the area orchestras just celebrated its 100 year anniversary, but is in the worst financial situation of its life. Imagine surviving 2 WWs an the Great Depression, and only now are people not thinking this is an institution worth supporting?

Where are our priorities? It just kills me that professional musicians, people who have skills that are rare at their level, have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Obviously, I'm a little biased in this issue, but it's a crying shame.

[cissa]

I am reading all this with sadness, because i grew up with the MN Orchestra. And also i work in the arts.

My own teaching gig went from great to pear-shaped when the admin took a similar tack. I was able to quit; some were not. But- it was like studio management- VITAL so things actually WORK!- and organization were seen as irrelevant, and when the "new blood' did a piss-poor job, admin shrugged.

And the school pretty close to died as a result. Not that they learned from this.

I am sorry to see it happen with the Orchestra.