Deborah Borda has concluded a three-year pay deal with the musicians to ensure a smooth start for the new music director Jaap Van Zweden.
The players get a 4.5 percent increase. Both sides seem content.
Across Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera is about to enter another horrible wrangle with its musicians.
Statement below.
The New York Philharmonic and American Federation of Musicians Local 802, which represents the Musicians of the Orchestra, jointly announce an agreement on a new three-year contract. The agreement, which was ratified by the musicians on Thursday, March 1, 2018, calls for a 4.5% increase in wages over three years. The contract will culminate on September 20, 2020, and replaces the previous contract, which expired on September 20, 2017.
“The members of the New York Philharmonic Board and administration hold the highest respect for the skill, artistry, and dedication of these world-class musicians,” saidDeborah Borda, President & CEO of the New York Philharmonic. “We also greatly value the long-standing spirit of partnership that allows the entire organization to move forward and fulfill its artistic mission.”
“The musicians of the New York Philharmonic are devoted to bringing world-class artistry and passion to all we do and are proud of the hard work we put in every day to ensure this ensemble continues to be regarded as among the most important artistic institutions in the world,” said Nathan Vickery, cellist, Chair of Orchestra Negotiation Committee. “The artistic standards that make the Philharmonic world-renowned will remain highest when the musicians who make music each and every night are supported. With negotiations behind us, this orchestra can focus on the music and artistry for which the Philharmonic is internationally known.”
“The musicians of the New York Philharmonic play a vital role in ensuring New York City’s status as a global leader in arts and culture,” said Tino Gagliardi, President, Local 802, AFM. “Contract negotiations are never easy, and as a new Music Director and leadership team take the helm at this institution, it is our hope that this agreement will mark the beginning of a new era which strives to retain the talent that fuels the institution’s worldwide renown.”
Bonhams New York are estimating $100-150,000 for the March 9 sale of a violin that once belonged to Albert Einstein.
The maker’s inscription reads: ‘Made for the Worlds[sic] Greatest Scientist Profesior[sic] Albert Einstein By Oscar H. Steger, Feb 1933 / Harrisburg, PA.’
Steger was a cabinet maker and member of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. He made the violin for Einstein on hearing that the physicist, a passionate amateur violinist, was to be resident scholar at Princeton.
Einstein passed on the violin to Lawrence Wilson Hibbs, son of a Princeton janitor and handyman Sylas Hibbs, and it has remained in the Hibbs family ever since.
image: Bonhams.
The long-running divorce of former TSO chief Jeff Melanson and heiress Eleanor McCain has ended to Melanson’s detriment. Melanson claimed a $5 million pay-off. The judge told him, forget it.
The Globe and Mail reports: The high-profile breakup of Ms. McCain, a singer and McCain Foods heiress, and Mr. Melanson, former president and CEO of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, has ended in a divorce – not an annulment as Ms. McCain had sought. Mr. Melanson will not be getting the $5-million payment initially outlined in the couple’s prenuptial agreement, but instead a settlement that has not been disclosed.
An investigation conducted by the Boston Symphony Orchestra into a sexual molestation claim by Fiona Allan against the conductor Charles Dutoit is credible.
Dutoit has denied all sexual harrassment claims made against him.
The BSO ‘s independent investigator has also uncovered reports by three more women to the effect that they were molested by Dutoit. Here is a summary:
DESCRIPTION OF INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT BY FIONA ALLAN AGAINST CHARLES DUTOIT
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) today announced the conclusion of an independent investigation into a December 2017 online comment made by a former intern, Fiona Allan, alleging sexual misconduct by guest conductor Charles Dutoit in the summer of 1997.
The investigator found that Ms. Allen’s allegations about Mr. Dutoit’s conduct were credible and supported by her interview with the investigator, her public statements about the incident, and information providedby BSO employees that corroborated various aspects of her work as an intern in 1997 at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in the Berkshires.
Over the course of the investigation, the investigator spoke with current and former BSO employees, the investigator reported that three women with whom she spoke credibly described incidents in the 1980s and 1990s in which they too were victims of sexual misconduct by Mr. Dutoit. The BSO is not releasing additional information about the incidents in order to protect the identities of the women. The investigator found that neither Ms. Allan nor the other women complained to the BSO, and there were no indications that BSO management was aware of Mr. Dutoit’s alleged sexual misconduct prior to Ms. Allan’s public statements in late December and early January.
After learning of Ms. Allan’s allegations, the BSO immediately announced it was commencing an independent investigation. At the time, the BSO had already severed its relationship with Dutoit, following a report by the Associated Press on December 21, 2017 that detailed the accounts of four women who alleged he had sexually assaulted them at other orchestras between 1985 and 2010. Based on the additional findings of the investigation, the BSO also has decided to revoke the honorary title of 2016 Koussevitzky Artist, which Dutoit received during the 2016 Tanglewood season.
‘Let me be clear that we want to send a strong message that any form of sexual harassment or assault goes completely against our values and will not be tolerated,’ said BSO Managing Director Mark Volpe. ‘The Boston Symphony Orchestra is extraordinarily thankful to the women who participated in its independent investigation and shared information about their experiences, and wants them and the entire BSO community to know that all reports of sexual misconduct will be taken seriously, investigated, and handled expeditiously and appropriately.’
The Boston Symphony Orchestra continues to be committed to fostering a positive and harassment-free work environment. The orchestra is in the process of enhancing its employee training and is reviewing its policies and procedures to reinforce its expectations for conduct in the work place. For example, the orchestra plans to clarify and recirculate its policies against harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, including guidelines for reporting complaints, to all employees; create a secure hotline to easily and directly register complaints or concerns; institute a new, mandatory workplace conduct webinar for all new employees; and roll-out a multi-tiered training program designed for the BSO’s staff, management, musicians, volunteers, and board of trustees and overseers.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra also is making changes to its third-party engagement process to include information about the BSO’s commitment to a harassment-free workplace and to clarify the orchestra’s expectations for guest artists who work with the organization’s various performing entities, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, and Tanglewood, among others. In addition, the BSO is committed to collaborating regularly with leaders in the field of workplace policies, as well as with colleagues at some of Boston’s leading arts and education organizations, to discuss and share best practices to ensure a safe environment in which all their employees can thrive.
Four American divas and a publisher sit around a San Francisco stage on a Sunday afternoon and tell it how it really is.
The divas are Marilyn Horne, Frederica von Stade, Patricia Racette and Deborah Voigt.
The moderator is Stephen Rubin.
No holds barred.
You will watch this til your eyes bleed.
Do not miss the divas listening to extracts of themselves.
Arms and shoulders, that is.
‘I realized that fabric is my enemy,’ she tells the New York Post.
In the costume credits, the reporter fails to mention her publicist, Sheila Porter.
