# Millionaire maestros are paid too much



## kg4fxg (May 24, 2009)

I caught the below discussion on a blog. Any thoughts about how much a maestro is paid? No wonder my season tickets are so expensive. Do you know how much your favorite conductor is paid? Sounds like more politics to me.



Millionaire maestros are paid too muchThe discrepancy between the salaries of conductors and those of musicians is scandalous and shouldn't continue

Lorin Maazel conducts the New York Philharmonic during a performance at the National Grand theatre in Beijing in February 2008. Photograph: David Guttenfelder/AP

Great article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune, on the almost football-player- level of salaries that the conductors and administrators of the big American orchestras receive. OK, so we're not talking – quite – John Terry or Cristiano Ronaldo figures here, but $2.2m (£1.4m) isn't bad for Lorin Maazel's job at the helm of the New York Philharmonic in 2006-7 (the last year for which figures are publicly available), and neither is Deborah Borda's $1.2m for her duties as CEO of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. There is still a ridiculous iniquity in the way classical musicians are paid. Stellar conductors can earn a fortune, soloists can charge between $30,000-$70,000 in the States, while the average wage for an average player in the grandest bands in the US is just over $100,000. That's vastly more than any orchestral player in a comparable (and comparably good) ensemble in Britain could hope to earn, but it points up the proportional lack of player power in classical music: reversing the footballers' paradigm for wild over-remuneration, it's the conductors, AKA the managers, who receive exponentially more cash than their players. (Precise figures for what British orchestras pay their maestros aren't in the public domain; anecdotal evidence suggests it's less than in the States, but the scale of conductors and soloists receiving many times more than rank-and-file orchestral players still holds.) 

As John von Rhein suggests in his piece, this situation can't go on forever in recession-hit America, where arts organisations, and especially its orchestral behemoths, are more vulnerable now than they have been for a generation. There have already been announcements of cutbacks from some American orchestras, as well as gestures of self-imposed pay cuts from Franz Welser-Möst at the Cleveland Orchestra and other music directors across the States. But the monstrous discrepancy between conductors' and soloists' salaries and those of the rank-and-file orchestral musicians remains. My favourite quote in von Rhein's article is from CAMI, the only conductors' agent who responded to his request for a comment that maestros are paid too much, who said the question should rather be asked of the orchestras, "as they are the ones paying the fees". Yes. And you're the ones who are asking for them, and taking 15% of the cash. It's not exactly in agents' interests to change the fee structures of classical music.

It's too easy only to blame those unseen fixers of the musical world, the agents, however: the system is clearly rotten. Perhaps, as von Rhein says, it's a "quaint souvenir" of the Bernstein or Karajan decades, when money from recording contracts was the oil that kept the international classical music machine moving, producing ever higher fees for its star conductors. And maybe now is the time to change all that, and to create a more level playing field where musical responsibility rather than celebrity would be the baseline of how musicians are paid. In this country, I'd start by paying orchestral musicians more with the revenue that would be recouped from paying the stars of the podium less. The benefits would be more than material: you would get better performances from musicians who felt they were being properly valued - even if, alas, the equivalent of $100,000 for every orchestral musician in Britain might be pushing it.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

The few friends of mine playing in world class orchestras make on average about $40K per season. Thats pretty good money for some short seasons.I know many might say thats rather low but considering how easy some of us live on less than $30k, i won't argue that point. Granted, the rent and costs in many large capital cities are substantially higher than the Portland/Vancouver area in which I live.

It will always be this way with CEO's,popular players and famous actors. As long as people are willing to pay for the tickets, then the salaries will move higher and higher. Baseball players are among the highest paid. The average salary is 1.2 million. So the fact that a major conductor is making what Maazel is doesn't surprise me at all.
I hear Joshua Bell makes $50,000 a series for three or four concerts. Thats rather grand money.

Thanks for the article. Very interesting. Reminds me of the book "The Maestro Myth".

Jim


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

It is all a matter of supply and demand. And for this same reason a great fooballer or a pop musician earn more than, say, Alfred Brendel.


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## kg4fxg (May 24, 2009)

*40k*

Thanks Handlebar,

I won't argue with 40K either. I am sure it is well deserved. This whole idea of making money with music is new to me. I know they don't play for free, but I never really stopped to think about what a conductor makes. Or as it is said the concert master can make more?

This year I bought season tickets to our youth ASO as my daughter who is only four and plays the violin will enjoy it. I wish I could afford season tickets for the opera and ballet but it would be a little pricey.

If it gets to expensive that would explain less interest in the younger generation. I would hate to classical music die a slow death because it becomes music of the rich.

I don't do anything with sports, I actually hate sports and almost fell over at the price of a hot dog at the ball park. That is why I pushed Maddie into violin so early in order to avoid soccer


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

I know many who also dislike sports in general and refuse to pay the ticket prices offered. I suppose it all comes down to how much you enjoy almost anything. I like sports but refuse to pay the enormous prices they ask just for a 2-3 hour event. 
And I hate to say it.same goes for classical concerts. I used to pay $15 per concert with the Oregon Symphony and was fine with that. I was also a season ticket holder for many years. Then the prices started to creep up.Before I knew it the concerts were at $25 for the LEAST expensive seat. Thats a $50 minimum for my wife and I to go. Yes, thats a cheap seat for those attending the NY Philharmonic or the Viernna S.O. But this is the Oregon Symphony.
So I stopped going. With this economy shaping the way it is, many others are doing the same and the Symphony has now cut way back on the big names appearing during the season. No more Perlman,Yo-Yo Ma,Bell and Sonnenberg. They now sign up the newer up and coming talent that charge far less.
So the big names names in this industry might have to reevaluate their prices or they won't be booked.

Jim


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Nobody gets paid too much or too little. The individual chooses a job (or is steered towards one) with knowledge of how much the job will fetch. Therefore they deserve as much or as little as they get, as they have taken the necessary steps of attaining the career (if they do indeed get it).

If one is discomforted by the notion of someone getting paid lots of money, they should have taken the necessary steps to attain a similar career. In any case, nobody should be displeased with their wage as money does not inspire happiness. That's the job of music!


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

Edward Elgar said:


> money does not inspire happiness.


Sure helps buy a LOT of music to MAKE me happy 

Jim


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## LvB (Nov 21, 2008)

kg4fxg said:


> If it gets too expensive that would explain less interest in the younger generation. I would hate to see classical music die a slow death because it becomes music of the rich.


I agree completely. There has always been a perception that classical music was for the elite, but at one point this was because it was mostly the wealthy who had the leisure to learn to play instruments and develop an understanding of music. For a short time in the 19th and early 20th centuries it looked as if that leisure and education was going to expand to cover ever larger numbers of people, but this is becoming less and less true; rather, even the wealthy take less and less genuine interest in serious culture (especially in the United States, where state support for the arts has always been spotty at best). So concerts get more and more expensive, and fewer and fewer people attend them. For a time recordings will fill some of the gaps, but even these will become less common as the audience dries up.

There is something absurd in the idea that any A-list conductor, and many performers, regardless of their actual contribution to music, will make more in a year than most composers in all of history made or will make from their music _during their entire lifetimes_. At least it's not yet as bad as pop music, where people with no discernible musical talent at all make tens of millions a year  .


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## Yosser (May 29, 2009)

One thing that surely sticks in the craw. The music that is bringing orchestral musicians an 'honest living', and the prima donnas, perhaps for good economic reason, a pile of dough, was written by composers who, for the most part, struggled like h*ll to remain solvent, oftentimes even compromising their art to do so.

This, for sure, is not fair.


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## Scott Good (Jun 8, 2009)

LvB said:


> There is something absurd in the idea that any A-list conductor, and many performers, regardless of their actual contribution to music, will make more in a year than most composers in all of history made or will make from their music _during their entire lifetimes_. At least it's not yet as bad as pop music, where people with no discernible musical talent at all make tens of millions a year  .


Humm...well, these days, there is a small handful of composers (just like conductors and performers) who make piles and piles of money. I read once that John Williams makes $60K a day in royalties alone (at least, that was back in the day when Star Wars, Raiders, and Jaws etc could be heard everywhere!). 2 million for a sound track (that could take 4-6 weeks to compose!)

That is serious cash! Blows the conductors out of the water.

And in terms of history, I don't think performers were necessarily better of than composers, simply because it was a time when there wasn't a sole composer - all composers were performers as well. But, I don't really know the numbers.

And lastly, most pop musicians make next to nothing compared to the average joe classical musician. But, considering the amount of time and money one must invest to become a professional classical musician, I believe that this is not so inequitable.

But please don't think that pop musicans are uber rich. Oh yes, a few rise to the top and make some serious cash (although considering how many people participate in their work, it is a pittance compared to many CEO's etc etc) - but most work for next to nothing.

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I do believe that in this field and all others, North American society should really re-evaluate the inequities that exist. This must be done at a core philosophical level, and I think it will begin with a general sense that value in life should not be measured so heavily on income. Does the conductor of NY Phil need money to feel valuable, or can simply the prestige and honor of working with this elite ensemble play more of a role, allowing some of that capital to flow into other areas, such as salaries or perhaps educational projects, outreach, and genral community service. Let the money flow a little freer to all, and society will be more healthy.

I'm not against the money motivator, and it does influence my direction in a positive way to work hard, but I do feel it needs to be weighed.

Perhaps a rather Canadian view point, eh?!


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