This is directed to TrickySam, who I believe is the Ex. Dir over at the Bellevue Phil. I noticed that you posted several per-service jobs on myauditions today.

Since they are per-service and I think you are a ROPA orchestra (please confirm), is your audition process different then the ICSOM orchestras?

Bellevue is definately not a ROPA orchestra. Here's a complete list of ROPA groups: http://www.ropaweb.org/members.php

I guess they are non-union then?

quote:

Originally posted by ThreadHead:
I guess they are non-union then?

Never assume. Try calling the local office for the AFM in Seattle or since there's another musician's union out there you might try calling their office and ask. Many small orchestras still have general contracts they use which function little mini contracts. I played in a bunch of groups like that right out of college and they were all quite different.

I saw those listings and what I would be curious about is what is the per service rate. I don't know how excited I would be to travel out to Seattle for an audition having no idea how much a job would pay, or worse, getting there only to find out it doesn't even pay $2,000 per year.

A freelancer friend of mine passed on the following info:

Bellevue Phil is a non-union gig. Not AFM, not IGSOBM. The per service rate for a section player last season was $50 each for dress rehearsal and concert; $43 for non-dress rehearsals, $48 for non-dress 3 Hr. rehearsals. She said the whole week ended up paying $286.

So you can imagine that it is a very low-priority gig in the freelance community in and around Seattle, unless perhaps you have a principal or concertmaster contract.

Correct. BP is NOT affiliated with any union. There is a local AFM office but the union has very little influence, if any, in the local music scene. I believe the only groups that are AFM affiliated are the Tacoma Symphony, the 5th Ave and Paramount Theater orchestras. The Seattle Symphony and the Pacific NW Ballet have their own union, IGSOBM.

BP is not viewed as a high priority gig by local freelancers. I would not relocate to Seattle to play in BP. The per service rate is nothing to write home about and there is no benefits package. However, the pay scale has increased steadily and the orchestra has balanced its books for the past several seasons, thanks to Larry Fried, BP executive director. Also, the musicians are friendly and the artistic level is improving each season. As long as concert dates don't conflict, it's easy to fit in with other gigs because BP rehearses in the evenings. The orchestra will also move into a new performing arts center in the near future. Although the pay isn't great, now is a good time to get into the group. With the enthusiastic artistic leadership of Fusao Kajima, music director, wisdom of the ED and an active and competent Board, the BP will soon surpass the other high priority gigs in town.

quote:

With the enthusiastic artistic leadership of Fusao Kajima, music director, wisdom of the ED and an active and competent Board, the BP will soon surpass the other high priority gigs in town.

I've never experienced it first hand but you shouldn't take anyone's word for anything on a discussion board. Talk to a variety of players in the group already and ask them yourself.

BTW, I used to make $100 per service (twice what Bellevue apparently pays) for a six concert per season orchestra in the East Coast (an area with a lower cost of living than Seattle) area 10 years ago.

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OK. Perhaps competent would've been a better word than wisdom. If the books are balanced, wouldn't that merit a little bit of wisdom? A lot of credit goes to the board.

The cost of living in Seattle is no doubt inflated and $50/service will barely cover gas $$. There's other work in town to fill up your date book. I wouldn't relocate for even 10 programs/yr @ $150/service. One could earn more w/ benefits working at Starbucks. However, the pay scale will continue to increase.

As for Kajima, I guess that depends on who you talk to. Honestly though, what orchestra in the world is there absolutely no animosity towards the baton wielder?

Thank you, Random!

A few real facts about the BPO:

They've improved a million times over 10 years ago thanks to personnel changes.

Pay has gone up quite a bit percentage wise but not compared to the rest of the area in dollars.

The musicians are nice, many are quite talented and almost all of them are on speaking terms (with each other).

I've talked to many of the musicians in this orchestra and they all have ways of dealing with it (sometimes succesfully).

As for the wisdom of the ED? Well, no paychecks have bounced, the abuse has improved a tiny bit and the payscale will hopefully go up again this fall. Is that wisdom? I can't tell.

Is any kind of verbal abuse from the podium acceptable? Maybe it should be a subject for another forum.

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Greetings g_sgarabotto from a fellow Puget Sounder! Some questions for you:

What's your connection with the BP? (Player, management, patron...) It's a lot easier to balance your budget when you are paying your musicians peanuts! That being said, however, I agree with you that some progress is being made. I remember when I came to Seattle in the mid-80's that the BP was basically an amateur community orchestra, with freelancers brought in to cover the principal chairs at a small stipend. So the fact that section players are receiving remuneration as well is great news.

Other questions: Since you say rehearsals are held in the evenings, does this mean that a goodly percentage of the orchestra hold day jobs outside the music biz? For those who don't know much about the Pacific Northwest, Bellevue is a well-off (for the most part) suburb of Seattle, located east of Lake Washington between Seattle and Redmond (home of Microsoft) I always had the impression that a fair number of the players had well-paying primary careers, and played in BP primarily for artistic gratification. Hence the bargain basement wages, and non-union status. But I could be completely wrong-- please correct me if so!

How many concerts per year does the BP present? Do they have a long-range plan in place, and if so, what are the primary goals for growth? Expansion of the season, better pay for the musicians? Does the organization aspire to ROPA status?

I know that's a lot of questions (and I could probably think of more!) but it's interesting to me -- very many orchestras started as amateur community groups and made the transition over a number of years into more and more professional orchestras, eventually offering contracted, living wage employment to their musicians. Transition is invariably difficult, often painful. Before joining the SSO, I also (like random) played for several years with an east coast orchestra in the middle of this transition -- at the time (early 80's) we were an eight concert per year AFM band just in the process of getting our first Master Agreement, with a per service rate just above what BP pays today. Now it's a well-regarded ROPA orchestra that offers its musicians a decent salary base to build on. I wish the BP good fortune in their continued growth and progress!

ETA: Greetings also, Maybelline! You must have posted while I was still (2-fingered) typing!

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I’m pleased that there is so much interest here in the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO.) There shouldn’t have been any question about the pay scale since that’s listed clearly in the audition notices posted here at MyAuditions.com.

The BPO was founded as a volunteer, community orchestra in 1967 and became fully professional in 1999. We are not a union orchestra. Fusao Kajima was appointed music director in 1999. Some of our members are full-time professional players; some have “day jobs.” Our full-time players also work with: Seattle Symphony (as regular subs), Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Tacoma Symphony. If you look on the map of the Puget Sound region – just south of Seattle – you’ll see the towns of Auburn and Federal Way. They have professional orchestras, too; some BPO musicians play with them.

I project that our 2005-2006 operating budget will be about $510,000. This makes us one of the very smallest fully-professional orchestras in the United States. A 2,000-seat performing arts center is being planned for downtown Bellevue and we hope to play there. In the meantime, we play in a 410 seat theatre, the only professional venue in our area. Therefore, our box office income – even if we sold every seat in the house – is extremely low.

We have a nationally-recognized, award-winning education program which served 5,300 elementary school kids this year…free of charge. Since the program started in 1999, we’ve served 29,000 children…free of charge.

We play five pairs of Masterworks concerts, 2 Messiahs, a Young Artists Debut Concert, several free community concerts (like July 4th in the park.) Next year we’ll also do six Young People’s Concerts.

I’m not going to say a word about the “wisdom” of the executive director but, yes, the transition from a volunteer orchestra to a fully-professional one is long and often difficult. Our subscriptions are up 12% over the past two years; single ticket sales are up a bit, too. Our 2005-2006 subscription campaign is going well. I borrowed an idea from the Duluth (MN) Symphony: we’re offering new subscribers 50% off the regular subscription price. In the first five weeks of our campaign this year, we’ve sold more subscriptions than we did after five months last year. We finished the past two fiscal years in the black; I anticipate finishing this fiscal year in the black, too. We have no deficit. We think that we’re on the right track – only time will tell.

I don’t say any of this to brag. I have no need to.

Our musicians got a much-deserved pay raise this year but they are still terribly underpaid. The 2005-2006 operating budget is currently being reviewed by our executive committee so I can’t discuss it publicly but the board is extremely sympathetic about this issue and I believe that I will have good news to report to our musicians once the full board votes on the budget in June. As I’ve said to our Orchestra Committee on several occasions: “I don’t want to be the executive director of the worst paying orchestra in the Puget Sound.”

Yes, Bellevue is an affluent community and it’s true that Bill Gates lives about one mile from my office. My friends, Mr. Gates does not give to tiny arts groups like the BPO, nor does his software company. Furthermore, with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet literally 6 or 7 miles away, most of the “big bucks” go there.

That’s us in a nutshell. We’re designing a new website but you can go to the temporary site, www.bellevuephil.org, to see our schedule for next season. If you’re in the Puget Sound region, I hope you’ll come to one of our concerts. Thank you again for your interest in the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra.


Lawrence J. Fried
Executive Director
Bellevue (WA) Philharmonic

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Thanks for the info, TrickySam! Gives me a better grasp of the situation out 520 way. I'm glad to hear that the management and board recognize that the musicians are so very underpaid. I'd be interested in your thoughts, if you care to share them, with regard to whether you expect the BP to unionize in the future, and how you think that would impact the organization as a whole.

ETA: BTW, your BP link is not working...

I'm curious about the answers for some of the questions asked earlier in this thread. Particularly, what are the long range goals for the organization with regard to season length, per service pay, etc.

I seem to remember the statement "I don’t want to be the executive director of the worst paying orchestra in the Puget Sound" (although I think you used to say Washington instead of Puget Sound). It's great that you acknowledge the current per service rate for what you, the executive manager, qualify as a full time professional orchestra is substandard.

However, where does the organization plan to take that rate in 5, 10, 15, or 20 years? Do you consider an increase in service count more important than increasing per service pay?

Will you support any attempt by the musicians to form a collective bargaining status (whether through IGSOBM or the AFM)?

I also think the point above regarding the ability to remain in black at the expense of paying the players so little is an issue which will need to be reversed. In New Mexico right now, their management claims the musicians are underpaid but they aren't proposing any measures to eliminate that imbalance any time in the next several years. however, their administrative expenses have more than doubled over the past 15 years and the musicians actually earn slightly less than that time period.

What will the BPO do to avoid that scenario?

And congratulations on the whopping success of the half off sale for subscriptions, what an original idea!

Drew

Don't know why the link doesn't work. I guess you'll have to type in our web address the "old-fashioned" way.

quote:

Originally posted by TrickySam9:
Don't know why the link doesn't work. I guess you'll have to type in our web address the "old-fashioned" way.

You simply need to drift your cursor over the link to see that you included the comma in the URL.

Drew

quote:

Originally posted by TrickySam9:
Don't know why the link doesn't work. I guess you'll have to type in our web address the "old-fashioned" way.

We corrected the URL in the prior post by TS9 and removed the comma. Link is now working.

As I stated, the half price offer for brand new subscribers is not original with us. I got the idea from the Duluth Symphony and I'm happy to acknowledge them.

We're not staying in the black "at the expense" of our players but we can't increase anything that we do without proper fiscal management, that is, living within the budget. For example, if we want to expand our education program, we've got to raise the money - be it from individuals, foundations, government, etc. - to pay for it. This past year the budget included a much-deserved raise for the musicians. We went out and raised the money to pay them, plus all our other bills, and we'll finish in the black.

Our long-range plan is to move into a 2,000 seat hall, a move which could easily double our budget overnight. Right now we can't perform half the standard rep because our stage is literally too small. No Mahler symphonies or "Pines of Rome" for us! We ultimately hope to do more concerts if the audience will support it,and I think they will. I'd like to add pops concerts and Saturday morning family concerts, too. Since the opening date of the new hall is very much in doubt -- they've got raise $100 milion to build it - I am focusing on building our audience base, increasing our donor base, continuing to attract and retain the best possible musicians, continuing to present great music and wonderful guest artists, keeping our concerts affordable, expanding our education program. Come to think of it, that's no different than any other orchestra.

Having said all that, the reality is that the Seattle Symphony performs 7 miles away in a beautiful, new concert hall. It's ironic that the "competition" for a $510,000 orchestra should be a $20 milion orchestra! Virtually every other Group 6/7 orchestra in the country performs in a small town. We don't.

Long before I got into this part of the business, I was a free-lance musician in the Greater New York area. I've been a card-carrying member of the AFM since 1971.

Here's an article about Maestro Kajima from the May 25th, 2001 Coloradoan:

http://www.reclaimfc.org/news/interesting/article_515.html

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quote:

Originally posted by randomviolinist:
Here's an article about Maestro Kajima from the May 25th, 2001 Coloradoan:

http://www.reclaimfc.org/news/interesting/article_515.html

Hey Random, you could get a job fact checker at most major newspapers with that kind of research. What happened to the quote?

Drew