Janos Gereben wrote ...a fascinating article -- on the unusual ways that a
contract dispute between musicians and the San Francisco Symphony orchestra
resulted in an all-but-lovefest -- entitled:

>HARMONY REIGNS IN SYMPHONY CONTRACT SETTLEMENT

Although I'm a music-lover, I'm by&large uninformed when it comes to
salaries for musicians in city symphonic orchestras.  Hence the queries
that follow.

The key point that's unclear to me has to do with the statement that:

>The minimum weekly pay goes up incrementally from $1,600 to $2,000 in 2005.

Is this for the musical season during which the musicans are onstage &/or
touring, or throughout the year? The answer to this would, I expect, make
for a considerable difference.  The absence of any qualification leads one
to compare with one's own situation, so to quickly multiply 2,000 times 50
 [as in 52wks/yr], and to arrive at the handsome figure of US$100,000 in
yearly income.

And this is a _minimum_, so it's for the lowliest or newest or greenest
member of the Orchestra!  So, what would the seasoned veterans be earning?
Twice that? Not to downplay the years upon years of training, the agony of
auditions, the library of scores borrowed, rented, bought, worked on and
sometimes memorized, nor the investment in degrees, other studies,
instruments, even the funeral-parlour clothes, but: wowie zowie!
...just where do I sign up!?

Something else: Do these figures include other earnings a player might
expect as an orchestra member -- i.e., for recordings? Or would such
performances earn some additional stipend? If the former, I'd have thought
that might be worth mentioning.  If the latter, again, hee-ha!  Maybe I
should stop badgering my 3 year-old toward dentistry, apply for his green
card and start extolling the virtues of a life in music in the US of A;>)

Mind you, I don't see any earthly reason why the second violinist for a
city philharmonic should have to earn, what?, 250 or would it be 5,000
times less than a Pavarotti, or a Jagger, for that matter.  (Wasn't Martinu
a 2nd violinist in Paris?) What I _do_ balk at is giving av.  working Janes
and Joes, uninformed citizens like me, the impression that those musicians
were merely griping, after all, and that they've now reached a settlement
that should make them well off by most anyone's standards.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Bert Bailey, not far from Montreal, whose Symphony Orchestra just settled
its own dispute, albeit not so colourfully (nor, dare I guess, as
lucratively -- no matter what your replies reveal)