Columbus Symphony Moving Backwards, at Least for Now

News on the Columbus Symphony situation has been something I have been following on my own this past year. Their lockout and recent agreement have been reported widely, as has the departure of their music director. This agreement leaves them with a base salary of $42,000. That number made me curious to review and compare their salary with that of the Nashville Symphony, with which I used to perform, and also the Phoenix Symphony, our local major orchestra.

As examples for comparison I found the numbers for the 1999-2000 and 2007-08 seasons. In 1999 the best paid group was Columbus; the base pay was $43,769. Nashville back then paid as their base $31,146 and Phoenix $30,055. For those unfamiliar with how pay works in orchestras, a good percentage of payers in the group get the actual base pay, but many others receive overscale in some form or another (for example, in Nashville I received a higher scale for services where I played Principal Horn [I was third horn] and also for woodwind quintet services). And most orchestral players can augment their pay to varying degrees through teaching and other performance activities (recording sessions, church gigs, etc.).

Jumping ahead to 2007, Columbus was still in the lead with their base pay of $55,200, Nashville had worked their way up to $48,299, and Phoenix dragged notably behind at a not so great $37,268. More background: Nashville took a couple pay cuts in the 1990s and also Phoenix took a pretty serious pay cut more recently.

So while the recent Columbus pay cut is a bad thing, I hope that things won’t deteriorate further for them. I do wish the players in Columbus well, and overall I am still optimistic about orchestras and orchestral playing having a future in the United States.