The label, celebrating its 120th anniversary, put n the first classical concert in the Forbidden City for 20 years.

Long Yu conducted the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in Carmina Burana, with the Wiener Singakademie, the Shanghai Spring Children’s Choir, and soloists Aida Garifullina, Toby Spence and Ludovic Tézier. Daniil Trifinov played Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto.

There was a simultaneous live stream in YouTube’s 360-degree virtual reality, as well as China’s regular formats.

It was a global DG showcase. Lacking only Lang Lang.

Video single, released today:

Gianandrea Noseda is flying at very short notice to Amsterdam to conduct Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem tomorrow, Friday and Sunday.

He replaces conductor emeritus Mariss Jansons who ‘has had to cancel the concerts due to health reasons’.

 

Having lost the first crucial wave of public opinion, the Lyric has put out a justification 24 hours later for its hardline position vis-a-vis the orchestra musicians.

One line stands out on first readng: ‘Lyric is very proud of its 80% occupancy’. That’s nothing to be proud of.

Here’s the statement:

Lyric’s Proposals

FACT: Lyric has made a fair offer to the musicians of the orchestra. We are committed to paying an excellent wage for work that is done but we can no longer pay for work that is not done.

· Under the new contract proposal, Lyric is offering average annual take home wages of $82,500 per orchestra member for 22 weeks of work and 20 hours of work per week. Any work over 20 hours per week is paid as overtime.

· Lyric will continue to offer full health benefits to all orchestra members and their families year-round. In 2018, Lyric paid 92% of the total cost or $954,000 while orchestra members paid 8% or $86,000, as their total combined contribution. The current proposal maintains this benefit.

· Lyric will continue to pay into an expensive defined benefit pension plan for the orchestra. The contribution has increased and next year will be 11.99% of wages.

· As an example of the inefficiencies embedded in the current agreement, during the 2016/17 season, Lyric paid $1.8 million in wages (not including the cost of benefits) to orchestra members for work weeks that Lyric could not use. These payments were guaranteed by the contract. Lyric’s proposals only seek to reduce a fraction of these payments.

· The new contract proposal provides for additional work when The Joffrey Ballet moves to the opera house in 2020 and continues the offer of additional work on the annual musical. During the 2019/20 season, the planned Ring Cycles represent an additional five weeks of work for 95 orchestra musicians at a cost of more than $1.5 million to Lyric.

· IATSE (ratified) and AGMA (subject to ratification) have agreed to contracts with similar provisions.

FACT: We are offering wage increases for musicians – but only for the time they are working.

Put simply, Lyric’s current contract requires Lyric to pay musicians for 24 weeks of work when its season is only 22 weeks. This weekly pay guarantee dates back more than 10 years, when Lyric had 86 performances in its season. In Lyric’s current season, only 56 performances are scheduled because that’s the maximum number supported by audience demand. Lyric needs to align musicians’ weekly guarantees with the length of the season.

FACT: Lyric’s proposal does not reduce the size of the orchestra used for any Lyric performance. It reduces the number of people who are guaranteed payment whether or not they play.

Lyric is committed to supporting a world-class orchestra with the full sound and artistic expertise required for each opera performed.

Lyric currently employs 74 regular orchestra members, all of whom are paid for the currently guaranteed 24 weeks, whether the score of the opera being performed calls for 74 players or not. Lyric is proposing the number of guaranteed players be reduced to 69 – through attrition only.

The number of musicians taking part in each performance is determined by the needs of the opera. For some operas, that will be significantly more than 69, and Lyric will pay additional members accordingly. For other operas, it will be less, but Lyric would still pay 69 under the terms of its proposal.

FACT: The current contract requires Lyric to pay musicians for eight radio broadcasts that no longer take place – this is not sustainable.

In addition to their regular pay, musicians are paid a fee for live radio broadcasts when they occur. Lyric just can’t afford to pay them when it is not actually broadcasting. Although Lyric would love to continue its opening night broadcasts, it has been unable to raise sponsorships to support them. Lyric continues to explore new ways to increase access to its artform.

Lyric’s Budget and Ticket Sales

FACT: Lyric’s budget has grown because it has added activities like the annual musicals and community engagement initiatives that pay for themselves and provide revenue to help underwrite Lyric’s grand opera season.

Lyric’s budget was $60M in 2012 when Lyric only did eight operas on the main stage. When Lyric added activities like the musical and community engagement initiatives, its operating budget grew to ~$78M. The $84.5 million 2017 budget quoted in some union materials was an anomaly because of three large-scale new productions that season.

Diversifying its activities is helping Lyric create new revenue streams and, over time, expand its audience base. The new activities more than pay for themselves and, in fact, offset deficits from the opera budget.

FACT: Ticket revenue appears flat over the past 6 years, but the composition of that revenue has changed dramatically.

Total revenue today is comprised of revenue from many activities beyond grand opera.

Ticket revenue from opera ticket sales has actually declined to less than $20 million from more than $25 million in 2012. The 2018 total revenue budget from ticket sales was $25.5 million, which included $6 million in sales from the musical.

Subscription revenue has fallen to ~$13 million today from ~$20 million in 2008.

Additionally, most of Lyric’s new tickets sales come from single-ticket sales or small bundles of performances – both of which have a significantly higher cost of sale relative to the full-season subscriptions that at one time filled the Opera House.

FACT: We have maintained our occupancy rate because we have reduced the number of grand opera performances to align with patron demand.

Lyric is very proud of its ~80 percent occupancy rate, which is still among the highest in the industry. However, it’s important to remember Lyric’s occupancy rate is a result of a decreased number of performances.

FACT: Lyric has continued to renew the vast majority of our subscribers, even as we needed to transition them to series that include performances on different days of the week.

With the decline in Lyric’s total number of performances, it is no longer possible for subscribers to come on the same day of the week for all the performances in their subscriptions. However, Lyric’s retention rates for transitioning subscribers to new subscription series have been exceptionally high.

The decline in Lyric’s total number of subscribers predated the reduction in performances numbers and is a trend opera companies nationwide are experiencing.

FACT: Lyric has created and implemented a comprehensive marketing plan that is in line with today’s marketing best practices.

Lyric’s current marketing plan includes dedicated strategies towards retaining its existing patron base while also focusing on attracting new consumers. The plan includes a comprehensive digital strategy, personalized patron communications, dedicated patron research and targeted emarketing initiatives.

Lyric’s Fundraising

FACT: Lyric is good at raising money and Lyric supporters are among the most generous and loyal anywhere. At the same time, Lyric exists as a public trust, and our donors expect accountability around all aspects of our business, including our agreements with our unions.

Lyric has not lost the ability to raise money. Lyric simply needs to give its donors a compelling reason to invest in this company for the long term. Its donors expect – and deserve – real change.

Donors give to Lyric out of love for the art form, and they give because they know a great city deserves a great opera company and a strong Lyric Opera is good for Chicago. Fully 50 percent of Lyric’s operating budget comes from contributed revenue. The fact that IATSE and AGMA have reached agreements with Lyric management to help address its problems will motivate donors.

However, simply launching another special campaign like Breaking New Ground to provide funds to be drawn on when needed for operating costs is not a sustainable strategy. Donors want to invest in something they know will support Lyric far into the future. While they appreciate the cost-savings initiatives Lyric has already achieved and the new sources of revenue created, achieving fair and efficient union agreements is an important indicator of success for donors. This was borne out by the recent extensive study conducted by Grenzebach Glier + Associates, a highly respected fundraising consultant.

UPDATE: Within minutes, the Lyric issued a correction to its statement (incorporated above). Chaos reigns.

Janina Paul will run the Konzerthaus from December.

She has been running the online arts site, Radialsystem V.

Cool move.

The manager of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Jordi Gimeno, has told a press conference that he is renewing the music director, Andrew Gourlay for just one more year.

No reason given. Worse, the orchestra were not told. They had to read it in news reports.

Gourlay has said nothing to anyone.

Gimeno promptly went on holiday.

This is no way to run a sweetshop.

The pianist Gabriela Montero who has exposed mutiple abuses in her native Venezuela, has been awarded the 2018 International Beethoven Prize for human rights, peace, freedom, anti-poverty and inclusion of the Beethoven Academy in Bonn.

The award’s three curators are: Martha Argerich, Andreas Loesch and Torsten Schreiber.

The award, worth 10,000 Euros, is richly deserved.

They have the world most advanced music teaching system, but there’s no keeping out bad apples.

A teacher in a school outside Helsinki has been jailed for molesting two boys.

She was 40, they were 12 and 15.

One of the boys went to the police.

More details here.

Belgium’s greatest contribution to humanity left us on October 9, 1978.

The French chanson survived for a while, expiring a few days ago with Charles Aznavour.

Frère Jacques, dormez-vous bien?

The moment the strike began yesterday morning, the musicians were ready with their side of the story – that the Lyric is spending on everything except the orchestra.

It took five hours for the Lyric to respond. When it did, this was what went out:

Thank you for supporting Lyric Opera. Unfortunately, the following performances and events have been canceled due to a strike by the Chicago Federation of Musicians Local #10-208:

-Lyric Uncorked, tonight (October 9) at 6pm
-Puccini’s LA BOHÈME on Thursday, October 11 at 2pm
-Open House Chicago, Saturday, October 13 at 9am
-Opening Night of Mozart’s IDOMENEO on Saturday, October 13 at 7:30pm

We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and we hope you will join us on another date. We ask that current ticket holders check their email for more information.

Thank you again for your support, and please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns. Email Audience Services at patron@lyricopera.org or call 312.827.5600 and one of our specialists will assist you.

The public response on the Lyric’s site has been overwhelmingly furious. Samples:
– You thank opera goers for their support, but nearly all of us support the musicians. Whomever manages your social media strategy is doing as terrible a job as managing Lyric the past few years.  I’m incredibly upset that I might not see Idomeno next week.

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– My subscription dates from 1955. The Lyric Opera is NOTHING without its orchestra. It is a world-class orchestra and should be treated as such.

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– That is a shame. Freud, with his $800,000 annual salary and the musicians begging a for a wage increase by the rate of inflation. I am Lyric Opera Orchestra!

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– I find it shameful that as a subscriber and a donor, no communication was sent to your “family.” I can’t believe I had to hear this from an article in Crain’s forwarded by a friend. Where was your rollout and communication plan? Poor management and development!

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– Why has “the company general director’s salary increased 18% from 2014 to 2017 to over $800,000[?!]
…his 16% jump in 2016 came immediately after the musicians agreed to a cost-neutral contract with cuts to health care.”
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– This Saturday’s performance was going to be attended by the Lyric Youth Council. You are turning away teenagers who are your future donors and subscribers. Shameful and destructive.

Sakari Oramo is stepping down as artistic director of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra in Finland next September.

His successor is Malin Broman, concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Sakari himself, come to think of it, started out as concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Malin is a terrific section leader.

Message from the University of Sussex:

Research by the University of Sussex shows an increasing number of schools have reduced or completely removed music in the curriculum for lower secondary school students in years 7 to 9

– 70% of music teachers reported often teaching outside their subject area to ‘fill gaps’ in ‘core subjects’

– The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is having a negative impact on the provision and uptake of music in schools

New research into Secondary Music Curriculum Provision between 2016-18/19 by the University of Sussex has revealed that music in schools is at significant risk of disappearing as schools offering music a subject, staffing levels and teaching hours in music are all in decline.

In particular, the EBacc, other performance measures and a squeeze on funding are cited as the main factors contributing to this continued decline.

Dr Ally Daubney, Senior Teaching Fellow in Education at the University of Sussex, said: “Having warned in 2016 that performance measures and funding cuts risk making music education in school extinct, our recent research highlights that the situation is now at crisis point in many secondary schools. We need to act now in order to reverse this decline and find ways to support schools to offer a sustained music education for all.”

Duncan Mackrill, Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Sussex, said: “Music’s place in the secondary Curriculum continues to be precariously balanced or disappearing in a significant number of schools. Without a change to require a balanced curriculum in all schools we are in danger of music education becoming in many cases the preserve of those who can pay.”

Academics from the University’s School of Education and Social Work surveyed almost 500 schools this summer. The research discovered:

· An increasing number of schools reducing or completely removing music in the curriculum for year 7, 8 and 9 students, resulting in some schools now not offering music as a curriculum subject and in others taught only on an ‘enrichment day’ once a year.

· The EBacc specifically as having a negative impact on the provision and uptake of music in schools (within and beyond the curriculum) with some schools discouraging top set students from taking music at KS4 because of the EBacc, whilst in others lower ability students were prevented from taking music so they could concentrate on core subjects.

· A decline in the number of schools offering GCSE music and other Key Stage 4 qualifications with some schools only offering it outside of school hours if at all.

· 15.4% fewer centres offering A Level music in 2018 compared to 2016, and a reduction of 31.7% in A Level music technology. This is likely to be reflected in the decreasing number of candidates sitting these qualifications in 2019 and 2020.

· An increase in music teachers teaching outside their subject area – over 70% cited often doing so since 2016, and a potential rise in redundancies for music teachers in the next academic year, with some responses noting that music teachers were not being replaced when leaving or retiring.

The research was undertaken between June and September 2018 and follows on from research undertaken for the period 2012-16.