Israeli musicians are told to reaudition for their jobs
OrchestrasThere is uproar in the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra where three musicians have been fired and others have been ordered to reaudition.
Those scheduled to be dismissed are a flute player, clarinet and trumpet.
The orders of dismissal and reaudition by managing director Ofer Amsalem are couched in singularly brutal terms: ‘If you decide not to atend the audition, let us know as soon as possible so we can organize the procedure for your termination.’
The music director, under whose auspices this shakeout is taking place, is Julian Rachlin (pictured). The orchestra management maintains that he is not involved.
Rachlin. May be correct if the musicians are not up to
The required standard.
The reason is only financial. There was no remark of their playing and musicianship.
Where is their musicians union? What are they doing?
IMU does not have the power of local 802.
You would think that Israel based organizations would have more important issues to focus on…rather than this restructuring…remember all symphonies are classical music cover bands…
That’s not accurate. There are many new pieces being composed for orchestra.
Shame on Rachlin!!!
Actually no one was fired yet. All tutti musicians in the clarinet, trumpet and flute section were asked to take an audition to determine who’ll be fired. They all refused. The current situation is still developing.
Dear Norman ,
As the CEO of the orchestra I would like to correct the info ;
JSO has 3 extra musicians in 3 sections : clarinet , trumpet and flute. Right now we have 4-4-4 and we made a decision to back to 3-3-3 cause we have less public budget this year. Last 3 years we became 4-4-4 cause we made a merge with other orchestra (Kibutzim ) and we had a commitment that with time we will back to normal size (over all 67 musicians). That’s the issue and i will appreciate if you correct the post.
That’s not the whole picture. Please tell us what’s your salary, and what’s Rachlin‘s salary?
Here, in the US all these numbers are published every year, and there are rules how to fire musicians.
I wish the musicians in Israel that your court will investigate it.
What did you do to try not to fire the musicians?
Who came up with the idea of having everyone in these instruments reaudition?
What’s the ‘oy vey’ for?
So you’ve failed to generate the income to support 4_4_4. So, the players are suffering the consequences of your failure
Can you generate?
Donate?
Organize the incom?
Please!
So you’re firing three musicians, and forcing them to audition against each other to keep their job.
Was this part of merger negotiations?
No wonder they’re in uproar, when did you decide that running a youth symphony seating audition was how you were going to fire them?
The article looks plenty accurate to me, chamor akshan
…so you are saying it is a case of classical music cleansing!
Disgusting. Only other country this will stand is Putin’s Russia. I’m embarrassed to be Israeli and a musician. You should be ashamed of ypurselves.and the genious Rachlin? What the hell does he think about this?
Mr. Amsalem, do you fancy yourself a wise director?
Your words are music to everyone`s ears?
Fire yourself.
Rachlin is a miserable selection of s GMD. He probably took the job to start practicing as a conductor and the orchestra got a package of a novice conductor for cheap who may also be attractive to donors. But as far as the artistic progress of this orchestra who knew lots of suffering due to poor selection of GMDs this is a major step bsckwards.
JSO has a long history of naming MDs for all other but musical reasons. And the same with financial dealings – quite shady.
Why didn’t they choose you for main conductor, I wonder!
All three dismissed musicians are wind and brass players: where they blowing anything else too? Were the grounds for dismissal musical or some other misdemeanor?
Creating unsubstantiated rumours and innuendos is such a waste of one’s mental energy. Ultimately it can destroy one’s soul.
This is one of the many reasons why I hate orchestras.
It fits the picture. This music director was appointed at the time without having conducted the orchestra even once before.
Obviously there is no tenure or union rules against requiring re-auditioning. Usually this procedure is the easiest way to remove incompetent musicians from the orchestra. Or to remove musicians who have a personality conflict with the conductor or administration. When this occurs, the musicians have no chance to retain their jobs so they should leave and search for another job because the re-audition is nothing more than a cruel sham!
Re-auditioning is indeed a cruel sham!
More background is needed. This is just inflammatory and possibly not the whole story.
The manager of the orchestra just commented above with the full story. It is still a disgusting story where orchestra musicians with no union are treated like human garbage. Shame on this orchestra and its management
Perfectly understandable. Rachlin wants to take them to the next level and take them on tour. The Jerusalem Symphony is almost as bad as the Haifa Symphony which toured the US a few years ago to disastrous reviews.
The Haifa Symphony is now directed by Yoel Levi who really raised their level in recent years
Serious amount of serious professional musicians, that escaped from Russia last two years, that is the main matter for their raising , and, of course, professional conductor is required.
But not nesessarily.
Jerusalem Camerata is fine example.
The following is my experience, although yours might be different. I’ve had the pleasure of attending a few IPO concerts on U.S.tours, and about 15 years I saw the Jerusalem Symphony for the first time on one of its tours. Leon Botstein conducted, and I was quite impressed. Nothing at all second-rate about the orchestra or the concert.
That ordered by somebody that never had to audition to get his job. I’m sure he will be very popular with the musicians.
I seem to recall stories about Muti in Philly making his principal trumpet Kaderabek reaudition (and he won).
Whenever one is asked to “re audition”, then you are basically agreeing to letting yourself get fired. Never re audition ever! It makes it much harder for the administration to fire you.
I think tenure is the greatest cause of mediocrity, complacency, and decline of a full time orchestra (which is part and parcel of being unionized at all). If you can’t do the job you should have the job. And all these folks hanging on 40, 50 years, what are you doing? You could never win your own job back. 0% chance.
The union should work in as much as they do for studio musicians. Negotiate the rate and make sure people are paid. After that, they get hired back only if they’re not an A-clown and can actually do the job.
Mr.Rachlin should instead be the one looking for a more suitable job instead of forcing a whole orchestra to reorient themselfs and possibly find another livelihood if there currently is no comparable vacant position.
As someone who has been watching the situation closely for the last 7-8 years, I would like to point out that Rachlin immediately improved the orchestra’s playing to unprecedented levels.
For the first time in decades, all main series concerts of the JSO are sold out. As for Ofer Amsalem – he arrived in March 2020, right before the pandemic and 2 months before the orchestra was scheduled to close due to the loss of 40% of its funding. During COVID, while 90% of JSO’s peers worldwide were on hiatus, the JSO, thanks to Amsalem, maintained a busy schedule, and completed a very impressive financial turnaround – that’s something worth writing about. But people would rather discuss something insignificant yet scandalous.
Why not mention that, thanks to the work of Rachlin and JSO’s management, the orchestra now has tours scheduled at the best European venues, with the best soloists, and as part of the most prestigious series? For the first time since 1938, the orchestra is transforming itself from the “less fortunate brother” (and talent pool) of the Israel Philharmonic into a real musical jewel.
Or, why not mention that, under Ofer Amsalem’s management, the JSO saved the Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra, which was shut down. Why not mention all the jobs that Amsalem saved then? Why not mention the vital music program in the kibbutzim all over the country, which, if not for the JSO and its management, would have been discontinued?
Don’t forget that the country is currently at war, and budgets are being slashed. The management has to make tough decisions daily – and cutting 3 positions from a full symphony orchestra seems like a very reasonable measure.
And last, but not least… What’s wrong with asking musicians to re-audition? It’s not unheard of. As a musician myself, I don’t see anything wrong with it.
This “news item” is taken out of context, and I would like to encourage everyone to take it “with a grain of salt”.
Agree with you completely!
But most of people, writing here, will tell you, that you are not enough politically correct, not tolerant, not socialistic in terms of everybody’s equality, and therefore you have to be burned at the stake.
When Dean Dixon became the conductor of the Sydney Symphony in the 1960s, the first thing he did was to audition everyone in order to find the dead wood. He was hated for this and created a much better orchestra with younger players. He was fired two years later. It’s hard to go against the grain when the wood is warped.
The fact that Rachlin has been silent throughout this is a major blow to his professional reputation.
Since JSO became independent of the (disbanded) Israel Broadcasting Authority, it’s been striving for stability. There was covid. There’s the war. Steven Sloane GMD came and went, for reasons unknown. And there are problems familiar to US orchestras: changing demographics, shrinking highbrow audience, attracting different audiences, making the payroll. I think there has also been a turnover in players. A complex situation. One scoop doesn’t tell us much.
As for the “overbearing maestro”, Mr Rachlin plays chamber music with orchestra members. Sometimes he plays second fiddle. (A wonderful Mendelssohn Octet!)
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if some of these administrators had to re-interview for their positions. Of course, they set the rules.
are these two- R and A- political nominations? who gave them the job? on what grounds? what is their cv?
I remember Rachlin as a young violinist who recorded the Sibelius with Mazzel. Now look at him.
Of course he is involved. He is to be on of the audition “jury” of 4 people – including the administrative manager who is not even a musician.
What a disgrace ! What a shame ! The state of Israel is committing a cultural suicide in addition to al the rest self destruction deeds…
You forgot about genocide and appartheid.
Please, continue…
There is probably more behind this story than is in the public domain. However, I remember when Walter Weller took over at RLPO he reauditioned the whole orchestra. A certain amount of dead wood was axed, a few new players were appointed and a bit of reseating happened within certain sections. All in all the orchestra’s standards benefited.
Any uproar over Gaza?
Who is supposed to dismiss Amsalem?