Klarinet Archive - Posting 000055.txt from 2008/11

From: "Penny Sprynet" <pennyw@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] After Drucker
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:56:09 -0500

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act was passed in 1967. Most
orchestras did practice some form of mandatory retirement age before then,
though it was bent and molded to match their preferences for a particular
member most of the time. These were internal decisions, and they had far
less oversight at that time by the AFM, who stepped in to enforce the ADEA
in the early 1970s, helping several people win cases against their former
employers, so today US orchestras no longer have such wording in their
contracts.

I understand that the Berlin Philharmonic still has a mandatory retirement
age of 65, which they believe keeps their orchestra "young," but whether
that improves it or not cannot be known. As far as other orchestras in
Europe, I don't know their specific policies. On the other hand, in most
countries in Europe your retirement years are not so financially precarious
as they are likely to be here.

It also sounds as though Alexander Brash came to Boston too late to have
been afforded the pleasure of Harold Wright's consistently brilliant
playing, and whether one likes Drucker's playing or not, there is no doubt
that he could still "play rings around" most younger players from a strictly
technical point of view.

I believe that the longer a group of wind players have to play as an
ensemble together, the better those sections are in an orchestra. Even the
change of one player can completely change the balance and sound of that
sections, or sometimes the entire brass or woodwind section. I recall when
the principal trumpet was changed in the 1980s, and it changed the entire
tone of the brass section, taking about 1-1/2 years to come back into
balance, to my ears.

Penny Ward Marcus

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexander Brash" <brash@-----.edu>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: [kl] After Drucker

> And I should add, I'm fairly certain that several European Orchestras
> still practice mandatory retirement? Though the entire model there is
> different. Please correct me if this is mistaken.
> On Nov 8, 2008, at 5:41 PM, Alexander Brash wrote:
>
>> I hope we realize there was a time when 65 *was* the mandatory
>> retirement age for orchestral players in this country. Unless we
>> expect that our forebears were all notoriously evil, immoral men,
>> and we have now far surpassed them in "correctness" - then a
>> mandatory retirement age is a perfectly acceptable thing to
>> consider. The societal "norm" today may consider this age
>> discrimination, but it's perfectly reasonable to posit that in some
>> areas, it's warranted. The number of available jobs is tiny, the
>> number of people seeking jobs each year is enormous. There is
>> certainly a sense of "fair play" in letting someone else have a go
>> of it - or at least forcing a reaudition of the position (remove
>> lifetime tenure - restrict to 10 year terms, or something like this).
>>
>>
>>

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