5 ms·

I remember listening to a piano concerto + symphony one evening live at a concert hall and thinking how it was possible that this orchestra of 50+ plus a famous

by j7ake 5y ago

I remember listening to a piano concerto + symphony one evening live at a concert hall and thinking how it was possible that this orchestra of 50+ plus a famous soloist makes money on our $100 tickets (best seats). Here we are paying $100 for 50 top notch world class musicians playing for 3 hours. There were maybe 500 people in the concert hall, so at an average ticket price of $50 each musician (split evenly) would have gotten max 500 bucks.

CHY872 5y ago
The financing can be complex, but broadly there are a few things that enable modern American orchestras to survive. 1. Benefactors who give money to the orchestra, rent boxes, etc. 2. Popular (non classical) concerts which have a possibly larger crowd and varied material. Harry Potter with orchestral accompaniment? Tenacious D with orchestral accompaniment? The musicians hate it, it pays the bills. 3. A mostly part time staff. Most orchestral musicians will play in many orchestras, teach, etc. They made a loss on your concert. But they knew they would.
- Leherenn 5y ago
  Why do musicians hate the "non-classical" concerts?
  - callalex 5y ago
    For the same reason a Michelin chef wouldn’t enjoy being a fry cook at McDonalds. It’s all the tedious parts of the job without the challenge and creativity parts.
    - Leherenn 5y ago
      Are the top movie scores really that bad/simple compared to the average classical piece? Clearly, the classical masterpieces are a step or two above, but they don't always play that or it must get boring quickly I assume. To me, if felt more like a Michelin chef having a go at a burger. You wouldn't do that all the time, but it could be a fun distraction once in a while. If anything, it feels like you would need quite a bit of creativity to adapt a piece that was not meant for a classical orchestra.
jacquesm 5y ago
Not to spoil your day, but if you subtract back out the costs of the venue it might be less than half that.
circlefavshape 5y ago
When I'm at a classical music concert I feel strongly that I'm part of a culture. Here's music written 300 years ago that we're actively conspiring to conserve. None of it really makes any money - not for the musicians who have spent their lives getting good enough to play it, not for the mostly amateur promoters, not for the taxpayers who probably bear the bulk of the costs of the thing - but we do it anyway. Even the bulk of the audience are probably not real afficionados, but still see value in it. I think it's kind of a lovely thing
- darkerside 5y ago
  Thank you for an excellent comment. It's added to the culture that is HN and the Internet. Signed, a lowly but enthusiastic shitposter
- visarga 5y ago
  It's 100-200 years old usually. 300 y.o. falls into the baroque era.
  - analog31 5y ago
    "Classical" means different things, and in this context refers to a broader time span. I'm blessed to live near a university with a great music department, so I actually get to hear music spanning 5 centuries including new stuff. It all involves mostly the same musicians and skill sets. Even the musicians refer to all of it generically as classical.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > I think it's kind of a lovely thing. There's room to disagree about that. Especially with orchestral music, the reality is that so much of the audience is simply there out of habit and not "real aficionados" as you say. Which means they're not really grokking any of the music and do not really care about anything besides the old "workhorse" pieces. The widely-acknowledged outcome is that, far from being actively preserved, much of the potential repertoire simply languishes in obscurity. There are of course forces pushing against this unwanted dynamic, such as a renewed appreciation for solo and small-ensemble/chamber music (which can at least be easier to understand for the novice listener), as well as recreational engagement with the artform outside the concert hall. In many ways, this is a reaffirmation of the "natural" environment for this sort of music where recorded music was either non-existent or uncommon, and actively playing music was an increasingly accessible, everyday activity.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
By comparison, how much do you earn per day? I think $500 per day would be a decent income for them, but as someone else pointed out, the venue probably takes up a big chunk, taxes another, the people involved that you don't see, etc so they wouldn't be getting that amount. And it's not like they have a 3 hour workday either, before that performance is going to be hours and hours of practice, years of training, and on the day itself X amount of traveling (more if they're international / on tour), getting dressed up, setting up, settling in, etc.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  The first part of your comment I agree with, the second is no different from any other qualified job. I do not know how they are paid, but if they are on a salary then their job is similar to mine and others (from a general workload/pay perspective)
prvc 5y ago
Typically orchestral musicians are paid salaries concomitant with other similarly high skilled professions, and orchestra budgets tend to be heavily subsidized. An HR department would inevitably be a substantial added expense.
- CrazyStat 5y ago
  At top-level orchestras this is true. For example, at the New York Philharmonic minimum pay was about $150k pre-pandemic, cut to $110k during the pandemic[1]. It is not true at less prestigious orchestras, where salaries are much lower. For example, the San Antonio Symphony tried to lower its base salary from just under $36k to just under $18k this past year[2], which resulted in a prolonged strike (still unresolved 6 months later). There are many more less-prestigious orchestras than top-level orchestras, so most orchestral musicians don't get paid salaries comparable to other similarly high skilled professions. Professional music is not unlike professional sports in this regard. [1] https://nonprofitquarterly.org/new-york-philharmonic-players-agree-to-long-term-pay-cut/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/new-york-philharmonic-players... [2] https://www.sacurrent.com/sanantonio/san-antonio-symphony-musicians-face-proposed-50-pay-cut-for-2020-2021-season/Content?oid=27048280 https://www.sacurrent.com/sanantonio/san-antonio-symphony-mu...
jfk13 5y ago
When you think how many of hours of study and rehearsal each of those musicians put into creating the 3 hours you enjoyed, it starts to look even better value.
- codegrappler 5y ago
  Having spoken with a few professional orchestra muscicians, this doesn’t appear to be true. They have honed their craft enough that they only need one practice before any given performance.
  - jfk13 5y ago
    > They have honed their craft enough that they only need one practice And how many (unpaid) hours, across how many years, did it take to "hone their craft" to such a degree?
  - Aidevah 5y ago
    While the old warhorses of the repertoire may need no preparations at all, new and challenging works need to be very well rehearsed for effective performances. From Charles Rosen's Freedom and the Arts: >When a piece of harrison Birtwhistle was performed a few years ago in Paris by Boulez with his ensemble intercontemporain, i remarked to Boulez that i had never heard a work by that admirable composer sound so convincing and effective. “We had thirty-five rehearsals,” Boulez replied. This may seem excessive and it is beyond the means of most musical organizations today, but when Beethoven’s symphony no. 9 was undertaken during the late 1820s at the Paris Conservatoire, the first rehearsal was so terrible that it was rehearsed every day for a year. Berlioz reported that the result was a triumph, although it was conducted by habeneck, who was his deadly enemy. >The music world has not changed as much as one might think. radically unfamiliar works require much more rehearsal than is practical when they first appear, before they can work their way into general musical consciousness: the first performance of elliott Carter’s double Concerto for harpsichord, Piano, and two small orchestras needed ten days of rehearsal; several years later, with a different orchestra that had never played the work, it needed only two days—the idiom had gradually permeated the musicians’ world. When hans rosbaud directed schoenberg’s Moses und Aron at the Zürich opera in 1957, he spent almost the entire budget of the year on rehearsals of this one work.
bsder 5y ago
> I remember listening to a piano concerto + symphony one evening live at a concert hall and thinking how it was possible that this orchestra of 50+ plus a famous soloist makes money on our $100 tickets (best seats). They don't. And this is the problem with classical music. This kind of thing is almost all about getting money from "benefactors"--and do NOT ever offend them. And those benefactors have normally pretty narrow musical taste in classical music.

by j7ake 5y ago

CHY872 5y ago

The financing can be complex, but broadly there are a few things that enable modern American orchestras to survive. 1. Benefactors who give money to the orchestra, rent boxes, etc. 2. Popular (non classical) concerts which have a possibly larger crowd and varied material. Harry Potter with orchestral accompaniment? Tenacious D with orchestral accompaniment? The musicians hate it, it pays the bills. 3. A mostly part time staff. Most orchestral musicians will play in many orchestras, teach, etc. They made a loss on your concert. But they knew they would.

Leherenn 5y ago
Why do musicians hate the "non-classical" concerts?
- callalex 5y ago
  For the same reason a Michelin chef wouldn’t enjoy being a fry cook at McDonalds. It’s all the tedious parts of the job without the challenge and creativity parts.
  - Leherenn 5y ago
    Are the top movie scores really that bad/simple compared to the average classical piece? Clearly, the classical masterpieces are a step or two above, but they don't always play that or it must get boring quickly I assume. To me, if felt more like a Michelin chef having a go at a burger. You wouldn't do that all the time, but it could be a fun distraction once in a while. If anything, it feels like you would need quite a bit of creativity to adapt a piece that was not meant for a classical orchestra.

jacquesm 5y ago

Not to spoil your day, but if you subtract back out the costs of the venue it might be less than half that.

circlefavshape 5y ago

When I'm at a classical music concert I feel strongly that I'm part of a culture. Here's music written 300 years ago that we're actively conspiring to conserve. None of it really makes any money - not for the musicians who have spent their lives getting good enough to play it, not for the mostly amateur promoters, not for the taxpayers who probably bear the bulk of the costs of the thing - but we do it anyway. Even the bulk of the audience are probably not real afficionados, but still see value in it. I think it's kind of a lovely thing

darkerside 5y ago
Thank you for an excellent comment. It's added to the culture that is HN and the Internet. Signed, a lowly but enthusiastic shitposter
visarga 5y ago
It's 100-200 years old usually. 300 y.o. falls into the baroque era.
- analog31 5y ago
  "Classical" means different things, and in this context refers to a broader time span. I'm blessed to live near a university with a great music department, so I actually get to hear music spanning 5 centuries including new stuff. It all involves mostly the same musicians and skill sets. Even the musicians refer to all of it generically as classical.
zozbot234 5y ago
> I think it's kind of a lovely thing. There's room to disagree about that. Especially with orchestral music, the reality is that so much of the audience is simply there out of habit and not "real aficionados" as you say. Which means they're not really grokking any of the music and do not really care about anything besides the old "workhorse" pieces. The widely-acknowledged outcome is that, far from being actively preserved, much of the potential repertoire simply languishes in obscurity. There are of course forces pushing against this unwanted dynamic, such as a renewed appreciation for solo and small-ensemble/chamber music (which can at least be easier to understand for the novice listener), as well as recreational engagement with the artform outside the concert hall. In many ways, this is a reaffirmation of the "natural" environment for this sort of music where recorded music was either non-existent or uncommon, and actively playing music was an increasingly accessible, everyday activity.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

By comparison, how much do you earn per day? I think $500 per day would be a decent income for them, but as someone else pointed out, the venue probably takes up a big chunk, taxes another, the people involved that you don't see, etc so they wouldn't be getting that amount. And it's not like they have a 3 hour workday either, before that performance is going to be hours and hours of practice, years of training, and on the day itself X amount of traveling (more if they're international / on tour), getting dressed up, setting up, settling in, etc.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago
The first part of your comment I agree with, the second is no different from any other qualified job. I do not know how they are paid, but if they are on a salary then their job is similar to mine and others (from a general workload/pay perspective)

prvc 5y ago

Typically orchestral musicians are paid salaries concomitant with other similarly high skilled professions, and orchestra budgets tend to be heavily subsidized. An HR department would inevitably be a substantial added expense.

CrazyStat 5y ago
At top-level orchestras this is true. For example, at the New York Philharmonic minimum pay was about $150k pre-pandemic, cut to $110k during the pandemic[1]. It is not true at less prestigious orchestras, where salaries are much lower. For example, the San Antonio Symphony tried to lower its base salary from just under $36k to just under $18k this past year[2], which resulted in a prolonged strike (still unresolved 6 months later). There are many more less-prestigious orchestras than top-level orchestras, so most orchestral musicians don't get paid salaries comparable to other similarly high skilled professions. Professional music is not unlike professional sports in this regard. [1] https://nonprofitquarterly.org/new-york-philharmonic-players-agree-to-long-term-pay-cut/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/new-york-philharmonic-players... [2] https://www.sacurrent.com/sanantonio/san-antonio-symphony-musicians-face-proposed-50-pay-cut-for-2020-2021-season/Content?oid=27048280 https://www.sacurrent.com/sanantonio/san-antonio-symphony-mu...

jfk13 5y ago

When you think how many of hours of study and rehearsal each of those musicians put into creating the 3 hours you enjoyed, it starts to look even better value.

codegrappler 5y ago
Having spoken with a few professional orchestra muscicians, this doesn’t appear to be true. They have honed their craft enough that they only need one practice before any given performance.
- jfk13 5y ago
  > They have honed their craft enough that they only need one practice And how many (unpaid) hours, across how many years, did it take to "hone their craft" to such a degree?
- Aidevah 5y ago
  While the old warhorses of the repertoire may need no preparations at all, new and challenging works need to be very well rehearsed for effective performances. From Charles Rosen's Freedom and the Arts: >When a piece of harrison Birtwhistle was performed a few years ago in Paris by Boulez with his ensemble intercontemporain, i remarked to Boulez that i had never heard a work by that admirable composer sound so convincing and effective. “We had thirty-five rehearsals,” Boulez replied. This may seem excessive and it is beyond the means of most musical organizations today, but when Beethoven’s symphony no. 9 was undertaken during the late 1820s at the Paris Conservatoire, the first rehearsal was so terrible that it was rehearsed every day for a year. Berlioz reported that the result was a triumph, although it was conducted by habeneck, who was his deadly enemy. >The music world has not changed as much as one might think. radically unfamiliar works require much more rehearsal than is practical when they first appear, before they can work their way into general musical consciousness: the first performance of elliott Carter’s double Concerto for harpsichord, Piano, and two small orchestras needed ten days of rehearsal; several years later, with a different orchestra that had never played the work, it needed only two days—the idiom had gradually permeated the musicians’ world. When hans rosbaud directed schoenberg’s Moses und Aron at the Zürich opera in 1957, he spent almost the entire budget of the year on rehearsals of this one work.

bsder 5y ago

> I remember listening to a piano concerto + symphony one evening live at a concert hall and thinking how it was possible that this orchestra of 50+ plus a famous soloist makes money on our $100 tickets (best seats). They don't. And this is the problem with classical music. This kind of thing is almost all about getting money from "benefactors"--and do NOT ever offend them. And those benefactors have normally pretty narrow musical taste in classical music.