AJ Logo an ARTSJOURNAL weblog | ArtsJournal Home | AJ Blog Central

« Luxury Seating, part two | Main | Different Appetites for Different Senses »

July 26, 2006

Response to Sam Bergman and Marc Geelhoed

by Klaus Heymann

Mr. Geelhoed states the prevailing attitude absolutely perfectly "If it's art that you're concerned about, you have to field the best team for it, and find a way to pay for it" and "no chief executive, mainly responsible for the bottom line, should have control over programming to the extent of the music director, either" - it says "let's make music and never mind where the money comes from" [ I'm wondering whether anybody in the audience noticed a few years back that the 4th trumpet in the Messiaen Ascension was not a CSO regular].

Regarding Mr. Bergman latest posting, I'm not saying that orchestras have too many musicians - I'm even saying that, if they can afford it, having 100+ musicians on salary is a good thing - what I'm saying is that orchestras must look at how many people they have on their payroll if their existence is threatened.

And when it comes to seven figure salaries for musical directors, he's talking about "an open market" when, in reality, there is no 'market' for symphonic music because it is not viable without subsidies [sponsors, tax payers].

Posted by kheymann at July 26, 2006 06:39 PM

COMMENTS

For the record: I never said or wrote anywhere "let's make music and never mind where the money comes from." That may be the conclusion Mr. Heymann draws, but it's not what I wrote, it's his own inaccurate punctuation.

I think most orchestra musicians would be insulted by his wondering if the audience noticed that one of the trumpeters wasn't a regular. If an audience-member doesn't notice an out-of-tune passage but a critic does, so what? Big deal, because if you don't know what's wrong, and ignorance is bliss, everything's hunky-dorey all the time, except, you know what? Sometimes it's not.

Posted by: Marc Geelhoed at July 27, 2006 08:06 AM

Klaus Heyman wrote:

"and when it comes to seven figure salaries for musical directors, he's talking about "an open market" when, in reality, there is no 'market' for symphonic music because it is not viable without subsidies [sponsors, tax payers]."

There's not a product I buy that's not subsidized in one way or another - including, by the way, Naxos recordings. Subsidies may distort a market, but hardly make market dynamics go away.

Robert Levine

Posted by: Robert Levine at July 27, 2006 03:32 PM



Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)

Tell A Friend

Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):














 

Site Meter