Klarinet Archive - Posting 000171.txt from 1998/12

From: "line ringuette" <lringuet@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Fwd: Do conductors need a union?
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 16:52:30 -0500

For much more detail on this subject, I would highly recommend reading:
"The Maestro Myth" by Norman Lebrecht. It is an excellent book, and
chronicles everything you ever (never?) wanted to know about the salaries,
contracts, the "appointment" of conductors, and the few select people who
pull all the strings. It really is one giant machine that churns on,
unseen by the general musical world.
It's too bad that conducting 3 orchestras plus guesting everywhere has
become "part of modern orchestral life", oftentimes at the detriment of the
orchestra and the music. There really is no need for it (judging by the
salaries that modern orchestral conductors command). - in my opinion....

Line Ringuette

<snip>
>
> This business of the peripatetic conductor has worked its way down into
> the middle and lower ranks of conductors and orchestras. Here in the
> small city of Evansville, Indiana, with our metropolitan-class orchestra,
> we had an English-born conductor, Stewart Kershaw, who split his time
> between us and the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. Before that, he
> had three jobs: conductor of the Paris ballet, the Stuttgart ballet, and
> the Kyoto, Japan symphony orchestra. How's that for a commute? Once he
> conducted a concert on Saturday night somewhere in Germany, then took the
> Concorde SST from Paris to the US, then on to Evansville in time for a
> rehearsal at 4:00 on Sunday afternoon. I can't say it was a musical
> thrill for him or the orchestra, but it seems to be a part of modern
> orchestral life.
>
> Ed Lacy
> el2@-----.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------