BBC is hiring 3 violins by proxy
OrchestrasThe Corp has posted vacancies for three tutti violins in the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
The workplace is listed as the recently-sold Maida Vale Studios, but ‘the Orchestra is looking forward to moving to a new purpose built studio facility at the site of the former Olympic Park in East London within the next few years.’
Applicants will have to produce evidence of their right to work in the UK.
What is a bit odd is that musicians are required to register via a commercial website called musicalchairs in order to start the application process. This website appears to have a monopoly on BBC musician jobs. That relationship is not transparent. Questions need to be asked.
Nothing apparently sinister about Musical Chairs website. It’s a well run site offering a market place for instrument sales, a window on competition entry and orchestral and teaching vacancies world wide.
It’s nothing more than a modern iteration of all the old systems.
I’m old enough to remember the old jazzers talking about meeting potential employers at Soho’s Archer Street although had no experience of it personally. I did though read the Daily Telegraph every Saturday which was the traditional place for advertising orchestra vacancies. This was followed by Classical Music magazine and now it’s Musical Chairs.
Plus ça change…
What about all the stellar orchestras, soloists and ensembles who appear regularly at the Proms and at our concert halls? Do they also have to prove that they have a right to work in the UK?
This reminds me of the old quip: Question – what do you call a Soviet symphony orchestra that has just returned from a trip abroad?
Answer – a string quartet.
In a year or two, will these three new string players be all that remains of the BBC orchestras?
The UK law states that ANY UK company thinking of employing someone MUST be able to prove that they have the legal right to work in the UK. A very sensible law.
Errrr…. Yes, all performers who appear regularly at the Proms and in Concert Halls have to prove that they have a right to work in the UK.
Anyone who employs someone without conducting that right-to-work check is breaking the law and can be fined £20,000. In the case of hiring freelancers based in the UK, checks are optional (but if you’re hiring via an agency, as most promoters will the agency will have done the check).
In the case of hiring musicians from abroad, they need to apply for and be granted a Visa – and there are plenty of well-documented examples of musicians failing to appear because they don’t have one. The increased work, expense and headaches for UK promoters and foreign music administrators is just another one of “Boris” Johnson’s Brexit Bonuses.
This gives UK and Irish performers a better chance and not just import from Continental Europe over and above the many filling out music colleges and no work.
Very wise. We have left the EU, and that has always applied for Americans and further afield if they want to work in our country. As a singer, I always had to have a work permit to work in Hong Kong.
Musical Chairs is a platform which advertises jobs across the industry and which already has the function to upload your CV and supporting documents for your application. Everyone from orchestras to music agencies uses it.
The BBC would need to have a webpage with the special function on that page to allow uploads, and have someone go through them all somehow, when this is already made possible on an external website which is probably easier/cheaper for them to use than having their developers create that page. I am probably glossing over a lot of the details, but there is nothing suspect about applying via Musical Chairs.
The BBC ought to put the function out to public tender.
It’s perfectly normal for businesses to conduct RFI-RFP processes behind closed doors. A full public tender process would be a waste of money and time for a small piece of basic outsourcing like this (I’d be surprised if the total spend is in excess of a fees tens of thousands), and isn’t required by UK laws for any UK public sector body.
Quite. At “About Us” on the Musical Chairs menu point there are no names of people working there. Also no phone number. Address: 23 Stockton Road, Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.
Fill your boots.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06199692/filing-history
Thank you for your kind reply secret sex singer. Clare and John Bradbury then. But it would be salutary were they to post this information on their own website. Why then have an “About Us” section in the first place?
From the home page, click on About, then Directors. That’s the link I’ve posted.
It might be a little bit more challenging on a phone, but it’s there.
And just for the record, and to reassure Norman, the BBC is paying £800 per year to advertise as many jobs as it wishes (https://www.musicalchairs.info/publish) – my previous estimate was based on a different recruitment market.
The Beeb spends £1.4 billion per year on procurement, and if Slippedisc wishes to become a supplier there is a specific Small and Local Suppliers policy (https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/supplying/pdf/Small_and_Local_Suppliers_Procurement_Policy.pdf), which is no doubt the framework under which Musical Chairs was hired.
I suspect Norman owes them an apology.
https://www.musicalchairs.info/about/directors
Recruitment through Musical Chairs has been going on for at least two decades now. Everyone in the industry is familiar with it. It’s no more iffy (well, arguably a great deal less iffy because it has no political agenda) than the fact that for many years pretty much all arts admin and public sector jobs were advertised exclusively in the Guardian.
The BBC, as a public service broadcaster, has a duty of transparency. Marginal as it may be, this is an undeclared commercial relationship.
This is a poorly researched click bait article. Musical Chairs is a simply a web platform which many orchestras, including the Royal Opera House, the Royal Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra, use to manage applications for jobs. There are great benefits for both the orchestra admins and the applicants. Once an applicant completes their information (education, previous experience etc.) the information is saved to the applicant’s profile which makes it so much easier to apply for subsequent jobs through the site, rather than having to waste time going through each orchestra’s individual and often very different HR forms as in the past, as many orchestras don’t simply accept applications in the form of a CV.
Do a bit of research and produce quality content instead of this petty, conspiracy theory click bait, SlippedDisc!
The BBC, as a public service broadcaster, has a duty of transparency. Marginal as it may be, this is an undeclared commercial relationship.
Err… So undeclared that anyone who is applying for a job, or reading job, knows about it. So undeclared that a journalist in search of clicks has found out about it.
Is your beef that the beeb have given the contract to a company part-owned by the BBC Phil’s Principal Clarinet?
https://www.musicalchairs.info/about/directors
Compared with many of the bits of incestuousness in an incestuous world that you report on that’s trivial. I don’t know how big the online orchestral musician recruitment market is, but a company that’s been doing it for 20-odd years seems pretty well placed to me.
Nope – it’s a job advert.
What a ridiculous article. Orchestras used to advertise in the Saturday Telegraph, but have moved to online advertising. Musicalchairs and Muvac are the sites that have the widest reach – much more so than the BBC Jobs website, which also lists these vacancies.
https://careers.bbc.co.uk/search/?createNewAlert=false&q=violin&locationsearch=&optionsFacetsDD_department=&optionsFacetsDD_shifttype=
I reality, the BBC are advertising the posts as widely as possible, using relevant and effective means. They’re clearly not asking Musicalchairs to recruit on their behalf.
Must be a slow news day for Norman to have wasted time dreaming up a way to dig at the BBC for advertising jobs…
Do you seriously think the BBC puts out to public tender for every petty commercial relationship it has? It would never function if that were the case.
Out of curiosity, I tried searching BBC jobs on its Careers page (https://careers.bbc.co.uk/). Without listing any keywords, the search feature pulls up a list of open positions like senior manager of programming at FAST Channels and broadcast journalist on Persian TV. Clicking on most of those, I see an option to apply or the job directly on the BBC website or to apply via business-employment platform LinkedIn; that link doesn’t work, but apparently you can log into your LinkedIn account and search for the same job.
If you type “violin” in the keyword search field, up pop those three tutti positions (https://careers.bbc.co.uk/job/London-Tutti-1st-Violin-%28x-3%29%2C-BBC-Symphony-Orchestra-W9-2LG/784377002/). The body of the job description says that candidates must register and apply on Musicalchairs and fill out some form work. However, the webpage also has the same “Apply Now” button as the other BBC jobs where one may apply directly to the BBC or via LinkedIn. That’s probably a dead end, and the real test is whether the candidate can follow directions and apply to Musicalchairs.
The real story here is not the use of Musical Chairs, but that candidates have to prove they already have the right to work in the UK. This must mean the BBC is not prepared to cover the cost of bringing non-UK musicians in on a Skilled Worker visa. I can understand why – the cost of the visa plus the Healthcare Surcharge is exorbitant. And the impending increase in the salary threshold to £38,700 will be more than a tutti salary. It is a sad indication of just how toxic the Government’s immigration policy has become post-Brexit.
Getting a skilled worker visas for tutti positions in UK is especially difficult. Most orchestras in the UK only have international auditions for title chairs. This was common practice before brexit as well
Ah yes, I remember you and the then chairman (now infamous) gushing and fawning over Caroline Dinenage a couple of years back at the ABO shindig…only to find out that the DCMS had shafted you (and by extension the rest of us).
Now you want to appear all “Brexit I told you so”? Doesn’t wash my friend.
I can send you a photo if you like of me speaking at a Remain rally at the House of Commons in April 2016, in which I outlined why Brexit would be a disaster for orchestras..
A photo?! I watched what you and the ABO did and didn’t do from the inside, so postcards of your posturing won’t cut the mustard.
==It is a sad indication of just how toxic the Government’s immigration policy has become post-Brexit.
Nonsense. Enough immigration
You can’t get a skilled visa for rank and file jobs only numbered positions…. Hardly the BBC’s fault.
I agree with Norman on this.
Musical Chairs sounds more like an outsourcing consultancy for redundant players 😉