KillingClassicalMusic

Are today’s orchestra musicians in top American orchestra paid too much?

This is surely a sensitive issue and a touchy question.  With all that is going on with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the pay reductions pursued and achieved by various orchestra management teams over that last few years, it seems it’s possible to answer this question affirmatively.  Here are some numbers for the top orchestras in the country from 200/09.

So what do you think?  Please feel free to include other musicians in your analysis too.  A good site to check for more info on this subject is Adaptistration’s Orchestra Compensation Reports page.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.  We’ll be collecting them all and doing a post highlighting the best points before next week’s question.  Hopefully by putting our heads together we can come up with some real innovative thought.  (P.S. There’s a delay on the round up for last week’s QotW, but it’s coming!)

(Also, a hat tip to the Intermezzo blog, which is where I first ran across the chart above.)