“The Orchestra strives to empower its musicians by integrating them into virtually every facet of the organization, literally changing the way the world thinks about musicians, conductors, and orchestras.”– The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra web site

“The [St. Paul Chamber Orchestra] is recognized for its innovative approach to artistic leadership. In 2004, the SPCO transferred broad artistic responsibilities from a music director to the SPCO musicians and an intentionally diverse group of Artistic Partners…” — The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra web site

“The Knights are an orchestra of friends from a broad spectrum of the New York music world who cultivate collaborative music making and creatively engage audiences in the shared joy of musical performance. Led by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they expand the orchestral concert experience with programs that encompass their roots in the Classical tradition and their passion for musical discovery.” — The Knights web site

I opened with these quotes because I’m not the first guy to come up with some of the ideas you’re about to read.  It is a little curious to me why some of the most artistically renowned, exciting, and vibrant American orchestras today are these three chamber orchestras.  Is there something about having only thirty or so musicians in an orchestra that makes them able to work together in better ways than an 80-member symphonic group? Is there a size limit on innovation?  I don’t think so.

For this post on the musicians’ role in my new orchestra model, it’s helpful that readers take a look back at Part 3 of Project MAD: On Financial Strategy and Organizational Structure.  In that post, I talk about how my from-scratch orchestra is financed and corporately structured. It’s not my intention to spend this particular post to explain how I’m going to finance and pay 70-80 musicians handsome full time salaries plus benefits. That’s not the point here. The point here is to define the musicians’ roles in my new orchestra model related to artistic and functional design.

In the American orchestra field, no aspect of the business model has been more scrutinized than the musician labor force.  Obviously, this is not surprising: without musicians, there is no orchestra. Musician salaries are the single largest expense in any orchestra, so obviously this part of the business receives a lot of attention. This aspect of the business is not an easy one to navigate: labor relations between musicians and ”management” (board and staff) have been the crux of significant dysfunction and friction for decades.  I admit I have struggled a lot in writing this post because the issues surrounding musicians’ roles in the American orchestra are just so complicated. Over the past couple of months that I’ve spent working on this one post, the orchestra world has continued to erupt with new disputes and problems.

In my research, I’ve looked at so many other industries and structural models, it’s become a blur.  In the end, I think a lot of the ideology I ended up pullling together was already out in the orchestra field via examples from groups like Orpheus, St. Paul, and The Knights.

Before I explain my take on the musicians, I need to do a little analysis for my ideas to be clear.

The Old Pyramid.  In most professional American orchestras, I’ve come to think of them as board-governed, conductor-focused, staff-driven, and almost, for lack of a better phrase, musician-dependent.  To demonstrate this idea, I’m going to use a visual analogy.

Picture a pyramid. At the tip-top of the traditional orchestra pyramid is the Music Director: talented, charismatic, and powerful.  The Music Director is delegated artistic leadership by the board, whom he/she usually reports to. Right beneath this usually high-paid, perhaps famous, much beloved maestro (or maestra), is the Board of Directors. Board members tend to worship the Music Director and rely mostly on him/her to motivate and inspire the entire organization, from the top down. It’s special air at the top of this pyramid, too. It is a place where a lot of successful, wealthy, influential people pay a lot of money (or get paid a lot of money) to rule at the top level. They own it, they control it. Everything this group does sort of runs down the pyramid… like marching orders. This top-third tier gets to decide what will and will not happen - in planning, policy, in finance, and in artistry.

Then there is the staff in the middle tier of the pyramid, usually led by an Executive Director. The staff functions in the space between the board and the musicians. The staff serves both groups, but I think they really focus more time and attention upward, working to fulfill the Music Director’s vision, and following policies and tastes set by the board. The staff passes the ”marching orders” down to the musicians.  The staff’s job is to enforce the contractual agreement between the two groups above and below (this contract is the Collective Bargaining Agreement or CBA). As orchestra staff functions between the board and the musicians, I think of today’s orchestras as largely staff-driven.

Finally, in the wide, bottom third tier of the pyramid – its real foundation structurally - is this large group of ”poor, lowly musicians.” The sarcasm is mine and intended, because they shouldn’t be viewed that way at all. In my view, everything in the traditional orchestra pyramid today sort of sits on top of the musicians like a huge pile of bricks. Musicians appear almost like servants at the literal bottom of an internal caste system (and it has been said that the men still dress like butlers.)

The New Pyramid.  For my new model, I want to swap out the pyramid positions of the board and the musicians.  I want to put the musicians at the top of the City Symphony pyramid with their Music Director (or Principal Conductor, or Artistic Partners), artist(s) whom they choose, collaborate with, and evaluate.

The City Symphony staff remain in the middle of my new pyramid, between the musicians and the board. But leading this center tier, I want the principal executive (I’m suggesting a General Manager title) to also be chosen by the musicians, and report to the musicians. The General Manager still hires and manages the staff in this new pyramid. The staff’s primary attention is still focused naturally upward in this pyramid, but instead of looking up toward the Board and the Music Director, they look toward the musicians with the Music Director, for their direction. Their role is to fulfill the musicians’ needs in production, marketing, etc.

Finally, I place the MAD Foundation Board at the bottom third of the pyramid. No, not as “lowly board members” at all. I see them as a wide, strong foundation upon which the musicians and staff rest. This base of support is vital to the health of the pyramid. Without a strong board, the orchestra’s foundation of support structurally crumbles and falls. I like this analogy of the pyramid because its natural shape causes everyone in the institution to look up, the organization rises toward the peak of great composers, great musicians, great music.  What happens at the top – this great music – flows down to the community in cultural, artistic value.

So how might a more musician-controlled non-profit symphonic-sized orchestra actually work? Let me explain my ideas.

The Foundation. In my post on financial strategy and structure, I envisioned the MAD Foundation as a “parent” foundation whose primary function is to make money to subsidize the City Symphony, Music School, and to build and maintain the buildings required to house businesses that generate money, and facilities in which to learn, produce and perform music.  This foundation is the base of my new pyramid. The purpose of the foundation is to develop and sustain the resources necessary to support music making in the community, for the health of the community and its quality of life, period.  Their function is not to “produce and present symphonic music.”  I want the Board to focus on making money. An orchestra is a big business, it needs lots of money to serve its audience.

The Orchestra Council. I also wrote in Part 3 that the City Symphony would be established as a subsidiary that functions independently, with support flowing to it from the parent MAD Foundation.  I envision that the City Symphony subsidiary would have its own internal governance system with artistic and functional powers delegated to it by the MAD Foundation Board of Directors. I’ve decided to call the symphony’s internal governance group the Orchestra Council.

Would this Orchestra Council eliminate the need for the union or a CBA?  Maybe, maybe not - there is a lot of language within a CBA that serves an extremely valuable purpose as the ”rule book” for the orchestra.  The CBA is a tool for establishing standards and equality. My proposed orchestra structure might make it an entirely different document than most CBAs today, but that’s okay.

I envision this Orchestra Council would be comprised of all of the principal chairs of the orchestra, along with the General Manager and Music Director, but with the two leaders serving ex-officio. The principal musicians, with an elected Chairman presiding, would hold majority voting power over the City Symphony’s annual budget, annual season, guest artists, composers, etc., within the boundaries of the mission, vision, and goals, established by the MAD Foundation board.

I’m choosing to have the musicians, via the Orchestra Council, retain enough authority to hire or fire their own General Manager as their chief administrator of the City Symphony, and to hire and fire their Music Director (or a variant leadership team) as their chief artistic leader(s). Both the General Manager and the Music Director are still vitally important people.  But I want the musicians to select them, define their responsibilities, make them accountable, and pay them what the organization can afford to pay. If the musicians want to hire a famous conductor who commands a seven-figure salary, (and whom only conducts half their shows each year), fine - it’s up to them to make this choice if they can afford it. If they want a high-paid, top-tier General Manager with experience running a great orchestra, it’s up to them. But they have to fund these positions within the boundaries of what the Board hands them each year from the Foundation’s prior year net income, and what they can reasonably generate in direct income.

If the Orchestra Council, for whatever reason, should get into an internal squabble, the CEO of the MAD Foundation would intervene for arbitration. The foundation’s CEO is the only person hired and fired by the MAD Foundation Board of Directors in my model. The Orchestra Council reports to the CEO, with an appeal option to go directly to the MAD Foundation Board of Directors, but the issue would stop with the board.

The elected musician Chairman of the Orchestra Council would have the responsibility to run its meetings, officially sign off on Audition Committee appointments, tenure promotions, etc., and would serve as a voting member of the MAD Foundation Board of Directors. The Chairman of the Orchestra Council would also appoint Chairs and members of important orchestra committees, but I’d like to see some cool functional orchestra committees:  New Works Committee, New Media Committee.

Outcomes. What musicians might do on their own doesn’t scare me, it excites me – as an arts administrator and as a classical music lover.  I think handing over the keys to people who actually do the work of making music would allow musicians to really start to engage with each other, with their audiences, in ways that are meaningful to them and have even greater value to audiences. I think people would be surprised at the energy, the excitement that could happen if musicians were allowed to lead and develop their artistic vision and direct what happens functionally. If you consider the artistic success of Orpheus – perhaps the most famous ‘democratic’ orchestra in the world - I rest my case as to potential outcomes.

Chamber Music. In addition to full symphonic concerts, the City Symphony musicians should be allowed to develop their careers in other ways that benefit their development as a full ensemble.  They should own a nice market share for chamber music – forming small ensembles among themselves. This is nothing new. These ensembles can bear the City Symphony brand for recognition. Chamber concerts are well suited for lunch time or rush hour concerts – and could even make money and broaden visibility through recordings and tour appearances of their own.  The newest Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass Live CD sprang to my mind. Their new recording (on the CSO Resound label, their own) hit #1 on the iTunes classical chart while I was working on this post.

Solo Opportunities. Musicians in the orchestra also deserve more solo opportunities, especially the principals.  A number of soloist spots on every season should be reserved for orchestra musicians to have the opportunity to play solo repertoire.  Again, this is not new, it is fairly common in orchestras for certain principals to perform concertos from time to time. I would expand this, though, to ALL principals, and more frequently. Allowing the audience to regularly hear the wealth of talent within their musician ranks would strengthen the relationship between the orchestra and its patrons. People need to learn the names of their musicians and hear what they can really do as individuals.

Guest Soloists. In a lot of orchestras, guest soloists arrive, play, and leave, many to never return. Certainly, the most famous guests are often re-engaged, and some of them help push ticket sales. Still, a lot of soloists come and go like interchangable parts of a machine. No significant artistic relationship is forged between the solo artists and orchestra audiences through the “one-off” tradition. I would like to see more soloists engaged repeatedly, allowing audiences to truly get to understand and appreciate their artistry. Instead of a one-week concerto engagement, make it a multi-week or multi-season relationship with commissions, recitals, and more. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s artistic partner program is a fine example of this idea.  Copy and paste to the City Symphony.

Composers. Last, but certainly not least, I specifically wrote in Part 1 that one of the goals of the Musical Arts Development Foundation was to champion the creation of new music as well as develop innovative approaches to the interpretation and presentation of classical music. I talked about presentation in my last post on artistic design.  I’ll talk more about interpretation in the next post about programming. But the part about championing new music belongs here, under musicians. In short, I want the City Symphony to keep composers at the center of what it does, and put more composers on the payroll.  Why? Because repertoire is one of the primary things that can make an orchestra completely unique. The more unique an orchestra can be, the broader its audience can be. New works can and should become signature works, part of the orchestra’s true artistic legacy.  What matters, of course, is the selection of the highest quality music from gifted composers.

I think that my orchestra model would seek to identify more music that belongs to them, and I don’t mean music that was just initiated by them and played a couple times in one concert set. I mean music that becomes a defining part of the symphony’s musical identity. When I go hear pop artists, I want to hear them play their songs.  I like that idea with an orchestra too. I love the idea of “signature repertoire” that is exclusive to the City Symphony.

Lots of today’s orchestras are commissioning new pieces every year. But the majority of these orchestras play these new pieces for one concert set and bubye.  The piece usually goes back to the composer or his/her publisher, who has to try to find another orchestra to play it.  When I say that an orchestra should champion new music, I mean they need to play it regularly, record it, and make it their piece. That is, if the piece is good. 

Another thing I’ve always found a little nutty in new music practice is that orchestras will choose a composer based on their resume, prior works, and reputation, and commission a piece from them. But then, they sort of have to pray that the piece is good.  When the piece arrives on the stands, the orchestra is sort of obliged to premiere it. By integrating composers into the fabric of the City Symphony organization, the orchestra would have the chance to workshop and try out new material in the rehearsal process, and develop music that truly has the potential to advance the orchestra’s artistic vision, and resonate with audiences. I would integrate composers back into the fabric of the City Symphony’s artistic design. They, too, are the musicians.

I’ll conclude my ideas in the category of artistic design in my next post, Part 6, on programming.  Then Project MAD will conclude with Part 7, a new approach to marketing and development.

Postscript: After posting this entry on Oct. 5, I happened to read another fascinating guest post from Tony’s Blog by Paul R. Judy that was posted on Sep. 28. Mr. Judy, a former Life Trustee of the Chicago Symphony and founder of the Symphony Orchestra Insitute (1995-2003), gives an interesting analysis on the history of American orchestra organizational models, and then says “let’s step away from all this history and pathology, take a pencil and a clean sheet of paper, and sketch out a new organizational model for the field.”  And he does. I hope my readers will find this equally interesting reading.