# Average community orchestra ticket prices in the US



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

I have another question about community orchestras in the US.

Can someone please tell me what the average ticket price is for a community orchestra concert, and how this compares to the cheapest ticket price for a professional orchestra concert?

Most community orchestra concerts in the UK are held in churches. There is usually a restricted view of the orchestra from about the 3rd audience row back, but all tickets are the same price except cheaper ones for people on pensions or unemployed. Most of the ticket prices for community orchestras near where I live in London are in the range of £12 to £15 however it is possible to pay less than this to hear a top professional orchestra in a purpose built concert hall in the centre of London and have a seat without a restricted view.

I would be interested to know how this compares with the US.


----------



## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Jaws said:


> I have another question about community orchestras in the US.
> 
> Can someone please tell me what the average ticket price is for a community orchestra concert, and how this compares to the cheapest ticket price for a professional orchestra concert?
> 
> ...


You have now got three different threads going on the same subject---why?
Amateur orchestras are a very important part of local life.
They do not all perform in churches by the way.
I've never heard anybody complain about prices but if you don't like the whole thing---don't go and it will cost you nothing.


----------



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

moody said:


> You have now got three different threads going on the same subject---why?
> Amateur orchestras are a very important part of local life.
> They do not all perform in churches by the way.
> I've never heard anybody complain about prices but if you don't like the whole thing---don't go and it will cost you nothing.


Regarding the 3 threads.

I am interested in community orchestras in the US because they appear to be able to accommodate all levels of playing skill.

In the UK community orchestras only cater for the bottom skill levels. If you don't believe me about this have a look at an amateur orchestras website and you will see how many orchestras ask for grade 8 standard players. Grade 8 is a very, very low standard beginners exam and only the beginning of learning to play an instrument. So most amateur orchestras in the UK only cater for beginner players. By contrast in the US it seems to be common that there are community orchestras that cater for players who have studied music performance at University/music college.

I don't know where you live, but I have lived in various places in the UK and I have never found an amateur orchestra that was an important part of local life. They certainly are not an important part of local life in London.

You are right about the churches I do remember playing in a couple of orchestras that did concerts in local hotels, however the restricted view for the audience still applied.

I have heard people complain about the ticket prices.

I have also heard people complain about the cost of the subscription to join an orchestra. I also know that orchestras that don't do concerts have lower subscription rates for their members.

I don't go to amateur orchestra concerts anymore. I stopped going when I found out that the people who play in amateur orchestras rarely go to hear other amateur orchestras. I decided not to support people who don't support others.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Ticket prices*

In Northern Virginia tickets for community groups average about $10 US. Although some performances are in churches, most are in concert halls and theaters. One group I play with perfroms in a community center theater, the other in a high school theater.

The various service bands have concerts that are free, like the US Marine Corps Band and Chamber Orchestra.

Tickets for the Narional Symphony range from $10 to $85 US.

My wife and I are going to Phildelphia to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra. Their ticket prices range from $26 to $96 US.


----------



## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

I live in Aylesbury which is hardly a metropolis but the Aylesbury Symphony is certainly fairly central in musical life the conductor is Ben Palmer.
He is the conductor of the Orchestra of St.Pauls (professional) and assistant to Roger Norrington with the Stuttgart Radio Orch and the Zurich Tonhalle Orch.
Their website asks for grade 7 or higher.
As London has five symphony orchestras perhaps amateur orchestras are not so important.


----------



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

moody said:


> I live in Aylesbury which is hardly a metropolis but the Aylesbury Symphony is certainly fairly central in musical life the conductor is Ben Palmer.
> He is the conductor of the Orchestra of St.Pauls (professional) and assistant to Roger Norrington with the Stuttgart Radio Orch and the Zurich Tonhalle Orch.
> Their website asks for grade 7 or higher.
> As London has five symphony orchestras perhaps amateur orchestras are not so important.


Thank you for the information on Aylesbury Symphony Orchestra which if asking for grade 7 or above is clearly like the average UK community orchestra, in that it caters for beginners.

Young people who get into the top music conservatoires to study violin in the UK have usually reached the standard required to pass grade 8 with distinction on the violin while they are still at primary school. It is not unusual for children to be able to pass grade 8 with distinction two years after starting. I know an adult who passed grade 8 six months after starting an instrument. So as you can see from this grade 8 is an exam that is taken by beginners, so is grade 7.

The high standard community orchestras in the US have people in them who have studied music after the age of 18. In the US there is no grade system but in order to study after 18 I would expect that they would still have to pass an audition. Here in the UK grades are not needed for either university or music conservatoire entrance as places are conditional on passing an audition.

Music conservatoire students have usually had at least 4 years of study after grade 8 before they start at college. They then have another 4 years at college. These are the kind of people who might get grade 8 with distinction 2 years after starting an instrument. So between grade 8 and leaving college, they have another 8 years to improve their playing standard. This means that when they leave music conservatoire they will at least have done the equivalent of beginner to grade 8 four times more in consecutive improvement, the very best students will have improved more than this. Professional players in the major symphony orchestras in the UK are a much higher standard than even the best students leaving college. The professional players have very high skills on their instrument.

To play orchestral music well needs very high skill levels. This is what the conservatoire training is for. So someone who is maybe the standard to pass grade 7 or 8, who is at the beginning of learning to play an instrument can't play orchestral music well because their skill levels are too low.

What an orchestra does in a concert is to interpret the written music for an audience to hear. What you get for your ticket price from a professional orchestra is a good reliable interpretation of what a composer intended his music to sound like. What you get from an orchestra of beginners is a very very approximate idea of what the composer might have written. Often these approximate examples have notes that are too loud in the wrong places at different times all through the orchestra, notes that are the wrong length somewhere in the orchestra, notes that are out of tune, chords that are out of tune. These things can only be corrected by someone with high skill playing levels who is in total control of everything they play. It is impossible to do this with beginner skill levels.

My argument is that the ticket prices for concerts should reflect the skill levels of the musicians taking part. This is based on the saying "you get what you pay for." No one likes to be charged more for an inferior product, but community orchestras do this to their audiences every time they charge more for their concerts than for a professional orchestra concert, or don't charge in line with what they are offering in terms of interpretation of the written music.

If I can go to hear a leading professional symphony orchestra for less than £12 a fair price for a concert by a community orchestra like the Aylesbury Orchestra will be not more than £1.

If an orchestra like Aylesbury Symphony Orchestra charges more than is fair for its level of interpretation, it could be doing what one of my friends calls fleecing friends and relations, or as another person put it, conning its audience out of their money.


----------



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> In Northern Virginia tickets for community groups average about $10 US. Although some performances are in churches, most are in concert halls and theaters. One group I play with perfroms in a community center theater, the other in a high school theater.
> 
> The various service bands have concerts that are free, like the US Marine Corps Band and Chamber Orchestra.
> 
> ...


Thank you for your information. It is very interesting.

I think that $10 US is worth less than £12. I am guessing that just on the exchange rate £12 is about $15 US and some community orchestras charge £15 here, so on average more expensive than Northern Virginia. I am not sure but I also think that $10 US might be less in terms of US incomes as well. For someone in the UK on minimum wage £12 of taxed income would take about 2 1/2 hours to earn.


----------



## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

It might make more sense to list the kinds of works that are played for "Grade 8". It may not be the same in all countries. If you're guessing on exchange rates, you might like to check music grades as well.
GG


----------



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

GraemeG said:


> It might make more sense to list the kinds of works that are played for "Grade 8". It may not be the same in all countries. If you're guessing on exchange rates, you might like to check music grades as well.
> GG


I know an adult who managed to pass grade 8 six months after starting an instrument. Lots of people pass it 2 years after starting. So I would think that the shortest length of time after starting that anyone can pass a grade is probably a better comparison than a list of works set.


----------



## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Jaws said:


> I know an adult who managed to pass grade 8 six months after starting an instrument. Lots of people pass it 2 years after starting. So I would think that the shortest length of time after starting that anyone can pass a grade is probably a better comparison than a list of works set.


No, I don't think so. Just because some child prodigy can pass something in 2 years doesn't mean there's a whole lot of people in an amateur orchestra with only 2 years experience.
For the record, in this country passing Grade 8 means the Beethoven Romances for violin, the Tchaikovsky Andante Cantabile for cello and the Hindemith Sonata for clarinet. If someone's good enough to do those within 2 years of starting, they'll fit into an orchestra OK.
GG


----------



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

GraemeG said:


> No, I don't think so. Just because some child prodigy can pass something in 2 years doesn't mean there's a whole lot of people in an amateur orchestra with only 2 years experience.
> For the record, in this country passing Grade 8 means the Beethoven Romances for violin, the Tchaikovsky Andante Cantabile for cello and the Hindemith Sonata for clarinet. If someone's good enough to do those within 2 years of starting, they'll fit into an orchestra OK.
> GG


In the UK it is quite possible for an adult to pass grade 8, two years after starting. However, being able to play the grade 8 violin pieces with piano doesn't guarantee that that same person with be able to sight read a second violin part in an orchestra, because ensemble skills are different to playing with a professional accompanist, who is being paid to cover up mistakes of the candidate in the grade exam.

The grade 8 exam in the UK doesn't test.

! Watching a conductor.

2 Counting multiple rests eg 101 bars rest.

3 Playing an inner part.

4 Playing with people the same standard as the candidate (most people pay a professional accompanist or their teacher plays the piano part and they are always better than the candidate)

5 Sight reading music where the notes are as difficult as the ones in the pieces that they have had 6 months to learn.

6 Playing with more than one other person.

7 Listening to multiple other parts while sight reading your own.

8 If you get lost being able to find your way back without help.

All of these thing are needed for orchestral playing, but you can pass grade 8 without being able to do any of them.

Grade 8 oboe has the second movement of the Mozart oboe concerto as one of the works. Professional players who are the equivalent standard of ten times the grade 8 (so if there was one it would be about grade 80) find this movement extremely difficult to play. The notes are really very simple. But notes alone don't make a piece of music. All the other things that make a piece of music sound pleasant and interesting and immediately as being in the Mozart style are what the professional players find difficult to achieve. Someone playing this piece for grade 8 will not be able to do anything other than get the notes, because the style for example, needs very, very high skill levels, and you can pass the UK grade 8 with very, very low skill levels.

I don't know which country you are in or how your grade levels compare to the UK ones but what is on the works list doesn't on its own tell you how good a player anyone taking any exam is. It depends how the music is played that gives a standard.


----------



## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

I'm going to stop feeding the troll.
GG


----------



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

GraemeG said:


> I'm going to stop feeding the troll.
> GG


As I understand it trolls make inflammatory remarks. Which of the above facts about what grade 8 in the UK doesn't test do you consider to be inflammatory? If you don't think that these facts are correct have a look at the grade 8 syllabus at the ABRSM website and see how many of the orchestral skill listed above are required for grade 8 on violin, clarinet and cello.

I would also like to know why if I said that a performance of the Beethoven Romances for violin by someone like Nicola Bennedetti would be of a much, much higher skill level than someone who had just reached the level required to pass grade 8, would you consider that to be an inflammatory remark?

You can compare the slow movement of the Mozart oboe concerto played by a top professional soloist to the Beethoven Romances for violin. The same level of skill required to play it well applies. What do you consider inflammatory about that?


----------

