Yes, for the most part, I am happy not to be on tour.  I found them to be the most stressful part of my job, and in the weeks leading up to the big event I’d be completely obsessed with the minutiae of running a tour – hotel rooming lists, flight manifests, per diem worksheets, visa applications, etc.  At night, I’d have horrible dreams about being stranded with fifty musicians at some run-down motel, unable to get to the next concert.  

What I do miss, however, is the sense of adventure.  For a couple of weeks each year, you get to leave your daily routine behind and embark on something completely different.  There’s a sense of camaraderie that develops during the two or three weeks you spend away from home, and I have fond memories of hanging out with colleagues after a concert or enjoying the hospitality of a sponsor or ambassador at a reception. In particular, I’m kind of sad about not making it to Whitehorse, which should be a highlight.

Last night, the orchestra performed the first of two concerts in Vancouver, and I was happy to see it got a glowing review in the Vancouver Sun.  At the same time, I was sitting in Southam Hall listening to a really great Feist concert, feeling much more relaxed and content than I would have been pacing backstage at the Orpheum.

It’s nice to see that Canadian orchestras are touring more regularly these days.  The Vancouver Symphony just finished a two-week tour to Asia, and they’re heading to Ontario and Quebec for four concerts in the spring.  The TSO performed at Carnegie earlier this month, and the Montreal Symphony has been to Carnegie, Japan, and South Korea this year.  There’s no doubt that touring is expensive and requires substantial financial support from a variety of sources, but I think it’s also incredibly rewarding for musicians and audiences alike.

By the way, my former orchestra has a tour website up at www.nacotour.ca.  I’m particularly interested in the tour blogs – a number of staff and musicians are writing posts, and the results so far make for good reading.  

Hey, if you happen to be in Vancouver, Prince George, Kamloops, Whitehorse, Victoria, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg, you still have the opportunity to catch the orchestra first-hand.  I understand good tickets are still available in some of those cities (unless you’re in Whitehorse, in which case you’re SOL as the concert is SRO).

As one gets older and starts considering a career in music, the reality becomes a bit more grim. In this country, only a handful of orchestras pay what I consider a decent salary. For the most part, musicians are severely underpaid, especially when you consider the amount of training, skill, and commitment required.

The NAC Orchestra currently enjoys the highest minimum annual salary in Canada. A base musician earns $79,000 for a 46-week season, although a lot of musicians make more than that due to overscale payments, electronic media fees, and extra fees for doubling. The orchestras in Toronto and Montreal used to be in the same range, but their salaries have fallen back a bit in recent years. For the sake of comparison, the Boston Symphony has the highest minimum annual salary this season in the U.S. at almost $123,000.

The majority of orchestra musicians in this country aren’t so fortunate. Most professional orchestras in Canada pay minimum salaries between $25,000 and the low $40′s. With fees that low, it’s basically a necessity to pick up teaching jobs and other playing engagements to make ends meet.

A couple of months ago, I came across a job posting for Principal Percussion of the Victoria Symphony. If I was still pursuing an orchestral career, that’s a job I would be very interested in. Rather than a weekly fee, the position provides a guaranteed number of services. Total guaranteed fee? Just over $21,000 a year. Median price of a single-family home in Victoria? $545,000. Sigh.

The starting salary for my first admin position ten years ago, with my complete lack of experience, was $35,000. While not a huge sum, I do find it odd that I was making more than professional musicians with years of experience in some pretty decent orchestras. No wonder part of me felt like I was selling out.

This post made me think of something Michael Hovnanian wrote on his blog a while ago. He described his evolution from beginner to sophisticated professional as follows:
1) wanting to hear myself play
2) wanting others to hear me play
3) wanting to be paid to play
4) wanting to be paid not to play

At the other end of the salary spectrum, Drew McManus continued his 2008 Orchestra Compensation Report today with a post on Music Director salaries. Click here to find out which maestro earned $2,189,455 in 2005-2006.

In the U.S., non-profit organizations like symphony orchestras file tax forms that are made available to the public. By using guidestar.org, it’s possible to look up your favourite orchestra and get information on the highest-paid employees – usually the Music Director, Concertmaster, and Executive Director / CEO. Fortunately for us lazy folks, Drew does all the leg work by gathering up this information and publishing it in a number of handy charts.

Even after ten years in the business, I’m still astounded by the amounts of money that are involved in the big (and not-so-big) U.S. orchestras. For example, the average salary of the top ten Executive Directors in 2005-2006 was almost $529,000. Sure, it’s an incredibly demanding job to run a major orchestra, but that still seems like a lot of money to pay someone running a non-profit.

There are some surprises on the list. For example, the ED of the Colorado Symphony received $282,000 while his counterpart at the Dallas Symphony earned a more modest $265,000, despite the fact that the Dallas Symphony’s operating budget is more than twice as big. Even a mid-size orchestra like the Fort Worth Symphony pays its top executive a salary in excess of $270,000.

The picture is quite different in Canada. Although you can’t find salary information for employees of Canadian orchestras, I can assure you the salaries aren’t in the same league. Don’t get me wrong – it’s possible to earn a very decent living running an orchestra in this country, but you’re certainly not going to get rich doing it.

I sometimes find the wage gap between base musicians and the top executives a little disturbing. When I was talking to a headhunter for an orchestra in Southern Ontario last year, one of the concerns I had was the job paid about five times more than the base salary for musicians. That’s a pretty huge gap, and part of me wondered whether I’d feel any guilt about the obvious discrepancy. (Dear potential future employer who has found this post: I no longer bear any such concerns).

If you think it’s only the suits who are making a lot of money in U.S. orchestras, don’t worry. In the next few days, Drew will post salary details for Music Directors and Concertmasters. Let the griping begin…

The stories are usually remarkably similar. Expenses are greater than revenues, deficit increases, bankruptcy looms, media debates role of classical music in today’s society, community rallies, musicians agree to wage cuts and concessions, and most of the time the organization rises from its deathbed.

Perhaps that’s why I found the sudden passing of the CBC Radio Orchestra so shocking. Although there were some warning signs recently that its long-term outlook was poor, it was still stunning to see someone simply pull the plug on such a long-standing cultural institution.

Now, I know a little bit about working for a national organization that struggles with funding issues and the difficult choices it can present for its leadership. Still, given the range of options available, it’s unfortunate the CBC chose the extinction of radio orchestras in North America. The orchestra’s annual budget was under a million dollars – isn’t that roughly the cost of producing a couple episodes of MVP – The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives? Which one has the greater cultural value?

Yesterday’s announcement must have been disheartening to this country’s classical music fans. When combined with recent news that the CBC will be reducing the amount of classical programming on Radio Two, and the disappearance of arts programs like Opening Night, it’s only fair to wonder what the future will hold.

A CBC spokesman claimed the money that would have been spent on the orchestra will now go towards commissioning works from other orchestras in Canada. I wish I could believe that was true, but given the CBC’s new priorities, it just sounds like spin to me.