Classical Music as an Industry

 

September 27th, 2021. The San Antonio Symphony is officially on strike. Labor negotiations have failed, and the musicians have decided to stop playing until they reach an appropriate wage decision from the executive board.

 

October 4th, 2010. Concerts come to a halt in the Max Fisher Hall as the musicians of the

 

Detroit Symphony go on strike after labor negotiations also fail. Musicians claim that their $100,000 annual salary would be cut by 30%, and their responsibilities in the orchestra would radically change from performing on the stage, to teaching music education in local classrooms.

Fall of 2016.

 

Pittsburgh Symphony musicians perform free concerts for the public in the midst of their own strike. After a few months, the strike concluded with a 10% decrease in wages for the orchestra, and a dramatic shift from a defined-benefit pension plan, which guarantees specific benefits for musicians once they retire, to an investment-based compensation. 

 

Money has always been a problem for musicians. It’s a tired trope that resonates for anyone that attempts to market and produce art. Orchestral musicians have never been exempted from this reality; some of history’s most famous composers, including people like Beethoven and Mozart, were able to produce a mass volume of high quality music because of aristocratic donors and royal commissions. Instrumentalists found employment through either discrete connections to the composer or the aristocracy, or via the government to perform for the royalty. 

Instruments weren’t ubiquitous enough due to the constraints of technology; they were extremely difficult to make, therefore quite expensive, and they weren’t always owned by so many people. As productivity in Europe dramatically rose with better technology and access to materials, more instruments were made and found permanent homes among middle-class families. In conjunction with the music publishing industry finding solace in the towns of instrumentalists and amateur ensembles, more people than ever before had access to both the great works of art heard in the concert halls, and also to sheet music containing simple melodies and songs to perform for fun. 

 

This is where a dramatic split occurred in classical music. As music education became more widely accessible and highly talented players were being churned out year after year, admission into salaried orchestras for employment became exceedingly difficult. Donors were still inextricably tied to the production of this music, and their money went into flawless performances with flashy, genuine musicality. Investments were made into how well the musicians upheld the tradition of the music, and this precision was reflected in the evolution of auditions. A member of the Detroit Symphony recently visited my trombone studio to listen to students play and share some of his experiences, and each detail of the music was scrutinized.

 

“More resonance on these notes.”

 

“Acknowledge these accents here. Too much accent here, though.”

 

“Some of these chromatic notes weren’t totally in tune. Let’s go back and do it slowly”.

 

Accuracy was such a large part of the game. He talked about how strenuous the process was to get to where he is. Undergrad. Grad school. Freelancing. Auditions. Auditions. Auditions. Flights for lessons, masterclasses, gigs. Flights for auditions. 30 auditions before he got into Detroit, he said. That requires years of preparation, execution, and a whole lot of failure.

 

I raised my hand as my teacher beckoned us to ask questions to the guest musician.

 

“What was your preparation like for the Detroit audition?”, I stammered.

 

He took a deep breath and sighed. “Well”, he started, “Firstly, it took years. I mean, years. Day after day, once I was done with performing or teaching and my other responsibilities, I would record each excerpt and listen back while giving myself a grade. I scrutinized every little detail; how many breaths I took, if I played everything with a good sound, if the intonation was consistent. Once I was happy with those results, I needed to practice doing all those things consistently…”

 

He went on about how he would randomize the excerpts each day and play a different list to prepare himself for any possible situation that the committee shows to him. He reminisced with a sort of grim look on his face, almost wincing at the strain and stress he had to endure just to get to where he’s at now. What he didn’t mention, however, were the people that also auditioned for that job and did not make it. What he didn’t talk about was what those people must go through once they receive their rejection notice; the looks on their families when they tell them they didn’t get the job, or the blisters on their fingers filled with blood and tension for years of more practice. He didn’t talk about how he would have to anticipate a labor strike a decade into his job win and that new orchestra members in Detroit would get a 25% pay cut to their starting salary.

 

I looked around at my studio mates and saw sweat beading down their foreheads. We’ve all already worked for years to gain some kind of facility on our instrument; private lessons in high school, youth orchestras, college auditions, and then practicing an ungodly number of hours everyday to satisfy lessons, ensembles, festival auditions, competitions, and then, eventually, grad school auditions. All of this costs a lot of time, and a lot of money. The allure of studying music in college has a lot of promises, but not a lot of guarantees. At the University of Michigan, assuming you get no scholarships, an undergraduate degree will run you well over $100,000. If you’re studying music, you’re encouraged to apply and audition for summer music festivals, of which many provide scholarships to the best players, but if you’re provided no money you’ll be expected to pay thousands of dollars. Aspen Music Festival, one of the best of these programs, costs around $10,000.

SO. What that means, then, is investing possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars into a (hopefully) comprehensive music education that MAY prepare you for the skills required in the professional workforce…of being in an orchestra. The years of ear training, instrumental lessons, large and small ensemble rehearsals and performances, and possibly mediocre and small scale freelancing all compile into one education that allegedly justifies the price point. Great! So what’s the problem?

 

THERE

ARE

 

NO

 

JOBS.

 

My musician friends would punch me in the gut for saying that, so let me rephrase it; there’s very few auditions for full-time, salaried roles in orchestras. A quick Google search can tell you how many spots are open (albeit, there are a number of auditions happening due to most auditions over the past year being canceled due to COVID). The Louisiana Philharmonic recently opened up a position for a full-time, tenure track principal trombone spot. The orchestra is among around 30 orchestras that are full-time and offer musicians with a salary and benefits. A quick glance at the requirements include a preliminary resume round where an applicant shows relevant orchestral experience, training and any summer festival/competition success. It’s fairly often that students can’t get past the resume round because they lack the proper job experience, which clearly perpetuates the problem. Students won’t be able to get past the resume round unless they 1) come from a prestigious school, 2) they’ve attended (and can therefore afford) massive summer festivals, or 3) their teacher has the right connections to the audition committee. 

 

Assuming you can get past this round, you’ll have to perform in a series of excerpts from standard pieces in the repertoire, in conjunction with a solo. The principal trombone of the Detroit Symphony said that “if you don’t sound pretty solid here, then you’re out”. This is where people can get cut for the smallest things. All the things he was saying earlier, the “accents”, the “resonance”, and the “intonation”. The committee’s ears are so fine tuned that if any of these things are out of place, they will give you the “thank you, have a nice day”. Getting past this round is where the years of lessons and ensembles kick in; the relevance of the style, musicianship and technical facility are put on a spotlight, and it’s not uncommon for people in these coveted positions now to have gotten so close for many years.

 

So far what we have is a series of financial and social hoops you have to jump through in order to even have a chance of getting into one of these orchestras. Summer festivals, college degrees, expensive instruments (not including repairs, upgrades, finding the right piece that works for you, etc.), and a plethora of mental and emotional burdens. If you have any insecurities or psychological fragilities, you probably don’t have the fortitude to go through this whole process. Even those who possess the courage (or stupidity) to go through the whole process find it draining. I was recently speaking to a close friend of mine who will remain unnamed about his own journey. He recently was runner-up for an African American Fellowship Program with one of the top orchestras in the country, and I was asking him about his experience.

 

“There were so many nights of just practicing”, he solemnly said. “I had to pass up a lot of opportunities to socialize or just relax because I was practicing the same excerpts everyday. I was getting pressure from my teacher to do well in the audition, and I felt like there were standards that I just could never achieve”.

 

Even though he got runner-up and will start subbing with the orchestra next season, he’s exhausted. He’s elated that he’ll be getting the chance to perform with a prestigious ensemble at such a young age, but he can’t help but think about all of the other people that applied and didn’t get the spot; what about the people that couldn’t even get past the resume round? How many of these people will remain in the audition circuit well past their college years and into middle adulthood, eventually opting out and switching career paths? Probably most of them. My friend happens to be a very secure, talented and hardworking individual and was raised by two professional musicians, so he has a leg up on many people trying to make it, but that doesn’t neglect the fact that it’s still hard for anyone trying to make it.

 

I’ve kinda been shitting on the industry for a while, so let’s look at some of the positives. Musicians in a full-time salaried orchestra tend to be quite happy that they’ve made it so far, and the top orchestras pay a good amount of money. There’s a host of opportunities for career development if you get into a position, such as teaching, masterclasses, touring, collaborations, and even solo recitals. Getting into an orchestra means doing what you love for a living and bringing beautiful music to audiences that actually love the music.

 

Even if you don’t get into an orchestra, there’s still a number of ways you can pursue classical music full-time. Freelancing, teaching, music administration, and music publishing/arranging are many modes of living for many musicians, and while it’s certainly not financially stable or for the faint of heart, if you don’t mind living frugally then it’s certainly doable. My very own sister decided that she didn’t want to perform for an orchestra after she completed graduate school for oboe performance, and wants to start a nonprofit chamber music group.

 

“Why’d you decide to do a nonprofit, anyway?” I asked her over a family breakfast one morning.

 

“You used to prepare for auditions and be on that grind for a while”.

 

“I just don’t like orchestras, I guess,” she replied.

 

I raised my eyebrows. Orchestras are most of what I listen to and have been my ambition for years, so I’ll admit I wasn’t fairly open-minded when I asked the question.

 

“I want to bring music to people that don’t normally have access to it,”, she continued. “It’s so much more personal and meaningful to me than playing in an orchestra, where I have practically no connection with the audience, and sometimes even to the music that we play.”

 

I understood exactly what she meant. Playing in a large ensemble can be validating and sometimes really meaningful, but chamber music tends to be a little more meaningful, if anything because there’s so few players that you ultimately have much more responsibility. It’s quite common in the orchestra for trombones to sit idly while the rest of the orchestra makes music, and it’s to become jaded when most of your training consists of counting rests and making sure the guy next to you is awake for the next big entrance. 

Chamber music looks more tantalizing in the industry at the moment as orchestras continue to struggle to sell tickets. It’s always been hard for orchestras to stay afloat and they’ve required a myriad of marketing strategies to stay alive.

 

Tickets do provide money for the orchestras…but, as you may guess, the donors are the people that keep everything afloat. This is true for practically every living art and cultural institution that exists in America. Although the public does consume these cultural products, it’s philanthropists and wealthy executives that keep these groups alive. Take the Detroit Symphony, for example. On their website, you can find details about the DSO’s fiscal year of 2019, which ended with a $55 million endowment, which primarily consists of donations from families that have a long history with the orchestra. Ticket revenue certainly increased, but the tickets sold are moreso a marker for how much of the public supports the group. 

 

As is the case with most industries these days, the internet and the ensuing globalization has had an interesting effect on production. While the Detroit Symphony usually has plenty of empty seats at its live concerts, searching the orchestra on YouTube finds….millions of views per video. Their recording of “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber garnered 2.3 million views, a number highly uncommon for orchestras to have. If the orchestra clearly has an online presence, why are they struggling to sell tickets? It might be a conflict in principle. People clearly like hearing orchestras, whether or not they realize it. What orchestras represent, however, might be the problem.