Wednesday, October 26, 2011

This Week in the Death of Classical Music

The sky has failed to fall in....Boston, Massachusetts!

The BSO and its musicians have signed a new contract. Here are the relevant numbers, copied directly from Adaptistration:
  • Wages (three percent increase per year): 2011-12, $132,028; 2012-13, $135,980; 2013-14, $140,088.
  • Pension (Private): Increases $2,000 to $77,000.
  • Orchestra Size: Unchanged at 101 members.
Nice figures: base salary rises 3% per year and pensions, demonized by politicians and others elsewhere, are going up two grand a year.

Why couldn't Philly do this? Let me guess: the BSO has better management.

2 comments:

Daniel Wolf said...

I would think that the BSO has two advantages over Philadelphia, the first simply being in Boston and the second having a larger share of the orchestral chairs endowed and presumably well-enough invested.

Lisa Hirsch said...

The second would fall under better management in my book. The BSO also didn't make the terrible real estate errors of the Philadelphia (moving to the Kimmel Center and doubling their cost of occupancy while also giving up their income from the Academy of Music).