Who’d pay a maestro a loyalty bonus?

Who’d pay a maestro a loyalty bonus?

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norman lebrecht

June 22, 2016

The official Dallas Symphony explanation for paying Jaap Van Zweden more than five million dollars in salary for 2013/14 is this:

The Music Director’s salary for 2013 was $1,788,997, with the bulk of the remainder being a signing bonus for a long-term contract extension executed in 2013… The long-term contract extension now goes through the 20/21 season and includes three years as conductor laureate. The bonus amount was funded entirely by a restricted gift given exclusively for this one-time occurrence. The bottom line operating budget of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra was not affected at all.

Are they out of their Texan minds?

There is no known precedent in orchestral history for paying a conductor a sweetener to stay put. He wants to go? Let him go. There are plenty more sticks on the shelf.

What Dallas did is way out of line with industry practice. It has also inflated Van Zweden’s value into some kind of South Sea Bubble, forcing the New York Philharmonic to pay over the odds for a conductor who was not their first choice – or anybody else’s, except Dallas.

Van Man and his IMG agent have proved themselves ace negotiators.

He’s also drawing down a hefty salary in Hong Kong, where he has just renewed.

So much for his fidelity to Dallas.

van zweeden1

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