To our music critic and journalist colleagues:

There has been a steady stream of articles about the salaries and working conditions of American orchestral musicians in recent years.  Other articles have detailed some of the financial issues facing major orchestras currently.  The International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) is a conference of the American Federation of Musicians and represents the musicians of 52 of the largest American orchestras-nearly all the orchestras that pay a full-time wage.  We have compiled the following material in order to assist journalists writing about the issues facing American orchestras.

The last 40 years have been a remarkable time for American orchestras.  Since the 1960s, American orchestras have raised the standard worldwide and become among the very best in the world.  They have recorded virtually the entire orchestral repertoire and toured the entire world as representatives of America’s highest cultural achievements.  The number of orchestras at every level has grown tremendously, and the number of fulltime professional musicians enriching our community has also grown as it has become possible to earn a good living playing music.  Orchestras today need the vision and growth that characterized the past four decades so that vision our greatest orchestras can continue to present our highest cultural achievements to the world during a time when it is perhaps more important than ever.

• As in all professions, orchestras need to compensate their employees at a level that allows them to attract and retain the best individuals.

• The competition for the relatively few fulltime orchestra jobs is intense.  For example, in 2003, there were 159 openings among the 4200 positions in ICSOM orchestras[1], and there were over 14,000 new graduates with music degrees entering the job market.[2]

• The dream of being able to spend one’s life playing in a great symphony orchestra brings many aspiring musicians into a field that has very few possibilities for fulltime employment.  All orchestral musicians have years of intense, competitive training.  Nearly all have undergraduate degrees; most have graduate studies.

• An outstanding symphony orchestra has long been considered a jewel in the crown of any major city, just as professional sports teams have.  The community leaders responsible for a city’s orchestra are usually the leaders in business and education- precisely those people who are also responsible for a city’s economic development- and an orchestra is an asset in attracting further economic development.

• In the mid 1960s, playing in the nation’s greatest orchestras was a part-time job, almost always for less than half of the year, forcing musicians to find other employment for the remainder of the year.  Congressional hearings and foundation studies of the arts determined that America’s orchestras were being subsidized by the low wages of their employees, and efforts were begun to raise orchestral salaries to a living wage.[3]  The result is that today there are 18 orchestras providing year round employment; and the average season for an ICSOM orchestra is over 40 weeks.[4]

• The increased number of positions paying a living wage has resulted in an increase in the number of students pursuing music as a career, rather than turn to something ‘more practical,’ which has in turn increased the number of smaller professional orchestras and raised the level of performance in all orchestras.

• Communities benefit from professional orchestras in many ways that are outside of the orchestra’s primary mission.  For example, orchestral musicians teach private lessons, perform chamber music, perform at churches, and teach part-time at local colleges.  These are all activities that could not pay a living wage, but which exist because the local professional orchestra provides the ‘musician infrastructure’ for the community.

• Just as ministers do not merely work for one hour each week, and athletes do not merely work only during games, musicians’ work weeks are made up of more than just the number of hours spent playing with the orchestra.  Typically, orchestras have 8 rehearsals or concerts each week, or a total of about 20 hours.  Additionally, musicians must practice at home in order to maintain their technique, prepare new pieces and play at the high level that is expected.  Beyond their time, rehearsing, performing and practicing, musicians may teach or perform in smaller groups.  It is worth noting that the work schedule is one that has evolved to accomplish what is needed to prepare and perform the number of concerts that the community desires.

• Some have made the argument that the nature of an orchestra’s schedule makes it a part-time job.  This ignores the results our communities have achieved by making it possible for playing in an orchestra to be a fulltime job. It is shortsighted to assume that the unparalleled artistic quality  that American orchestras have attained will continue in a “part-time” field.

Former ICSOM delegate and AFM Symphonic Services Director Lew Waldeck has written:

“The symphony musician is a professional, as a doctor is a professional, as a lawyer is a professional, as a banker is a professional.  Often a symphony musician has a degree of commitment unheard of in any other profession. This commitment must be made earlier in life than almost any other profession. Eight or nine is not an unusual age. That is when most musicians start. Do bankers? Do lawyers? Do doctors? At fifteen, in high school, musicians are already performing for those who have perhaps barely decided to enter law, or medicine, or business. Musicians are already sharpening physical and mental skills comparable to those of Olympic athletes. Upon graduation, musicians enter into the music program at a university or conservatory. The intensity of competition is extreme, the expense comparable to educations in law, medicine, or business.  At the bachelor’s level, when other professions are barely beginning their specific detailed education, musicians are already able to perform lengthy works of the utmost complexity at what would be Olympic levels of 9.5 or better. After graduate school the best of these musicians find jobs in symphony orchestras. In the best orchestras the expected performance level is like an Olympic 9.8 or better often even in rehearsal.”[5]

• In the 2003-20004 season, the average minimum salary for an ICSOM orchestra was $57,370.[6]  The average salary for a lawyer was $107,000.[7]  The average salary for a doctor was $139,640.[8]  The average salary for a financial manager was $87,190.[9]

• Musicians provide their own instruments.  Stringed instruments can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

• Musicians are susceptible to playing injuries ranging from overuse injuries such as tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome to hearing loss.  These injuries can be career ending; several prominent members of major orchestras have had to retire at a very early age recently due to injuries.

The foregoing information is intended to provide you with the basic economic facts of life of the orchestral musician. We hope that you will consult this information when covering and/or writing a story about labor negotiations, or other personnel issues involving symphony, opera or ballet musicians and their managements. 

If you need additional information, or have suggestions for additions to these pages, please contact us.  While we cannot comment on individual orchestras’ situations, we would be glad to provide context about the industry as a whole.  For further comment for publication, please contact Jan Gippo, Chair of ICSOM at: (314) 971-2023, or via e-mail.