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Orchestra Confidential-Symphonic Life from the Inside Out

April 13th, 2008

       This is a new series I am starting on the blog.  “Orchestra Confidential” will focus on symphonic musicians and all things that permeate the backstage of the concert hall.  I have always thought that the backstage lives of performing arts groups are an exciting place percolating with many different things.  There are always two doors to every event.  The public walks through the front doors under the marquis.  The artists, musicians, stage crew,  and make-up people all walk through the stage door.  The public at large is relatively separated from this underworld of frenetic artistic activity. ”Orchestra Confidential” is going to highlight this behind the scenes culture and everything that pertains to the performance aspect of the business.  In one my other series “The Art of the Deficit”, the focus is on orchestra managements and the difficult economic realities of running arts organizations. 

       Having played in over 30 professional orchestras to date, I have seen and experienced a wide range of things that I think are never really talked about to the general public.  From the perspective of the audience, an orchestra looks like a relatively normal institution.  A stage full of people in elegant formal tails and black dresses, playing this beautiful music and providing an enjoyable evening of entertainment.  Little do they know that orchestras are a hotbed of all kinds of activity.  Granted that many work environments have their share of issues, the interesting one about an orchestra is that the stage is everyones’ office.  There are 80-100 people on stage with each other day after day.  In the business world, most people have their own office to retreat too.  The scientist has his or her laboratory, the teacher his or her classroom.  This is not the case with musicians.  I have heard it been said many times that an orchestra player sees his stand partner more than their spouse! There are orchestras that do rotate, which means that they get to switch it up a bit.  This environment can lead to quite a soap opera to say the least.  I have witnessed and been briefed on many occasions where this has lead to some outrageous activity that will certainly be discussed further in this series.  What this really boils down to is that an orchestra is very similar to a dysfunctional family.  Members of the ensemble may not like each other, but are forced to deal with one another on a day to day basis. 

       I want to focus heavily on the psychological states of musicians.  Playing in an orchestra is a much more stressful job experience than most people realize.  There was a famous study that came out of Northwestern University some years back relating to high stress careers.  The study ranked symphonic musicians second after air traffic controllers when it came to high stress vocations.  One of the big factors was the margin of error for mistakes.  Even though a plane accident is much worse than a trumpet coming in the wrong spot, the mistakes are irrevocable. 

       To the surprise of the general public, job satisfaction in symphonies is sometimes extremely low.  Negativity and resentment run high in many groups.  The frustrated musician is nothing new and can almost become obsessed with  never achieving the goals they had in their mind when they entered this profession.  I will certainly cite the Harvard Business School’s study that stated that orchestra musicians ranked lower than federal prison guards in terms of job satisfaction.  Some factors that led to this discovery are the little input musicians have in the organizations, limited job mobility and the fact that most of the orchestra gets paid the same pay scale.  The new musician that joins the orchestra gets the same exact wage as the person who has been playing there for 40 years.  Musicians have to learn to live with the job they have, if they were lucky enough to get a job in the first place.  This will certainly lead to a discussion of the modern audition process.  In classical music, someone is hired potentially for life without a face to face interview, a review of personality traits, a mental health evaluation or what the organization can gain from attaining their employment. 

      I want this to be a collaborative effort.  I invite people to contact me and share their experiences good and bad.  The new media environment, in addition to the social networking potential of all of this can have a lasting impact on the industry.  Younger musicians can have a better sense of what to expect when they enter the professional arena.  Orchestra committees can have a platform to present their case perhaps in the middle of a difficult collective bargaining situation.  The list goes on and on. Click on the word contact at the top of this website.  Fill out the appropriate fields and I will respond as soon as I can. 

       On the lighter side, musicians can be absolutely fascinating to work with.  On the whole they tend to be extremely bright and are always interested in different things.  Whether it is someone reading Charles Dickens or obsessively involved in an intriguing hobby, the aesthetic focused mind of the artist is always in motion.   

       Please stay tuned for further posts on this exciting topic.  I look forward to corresponding with my orchestral colleagues and what surfaces from this inquest will surely be fascinating.  With many newspapers limiting or even abolishing their arts writers entirely, this will also serve as an important tool for reporting what needs to be out there.  Lets start from the top and not finish until we leave no stone unturned.  All repeats please.    

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