SanFran Symphony wants to cut its chorus by 80%
OrchestrasAlarming news from AGMA, the union representing chorus singers in San Francisco.
We, the members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, write to you with a deep sense of pride in our collective accomplishments and a sincere concern for the future of our cherished institution. The 32 paid singers of the Chorus are members of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), whose collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of July. The rest of our ensemble is composed of well over 120 unpaid singers who give their time and significant talents to the Symphony Chorus. Given the recent public discussions about the financial challenges faced by the Symphony, we feel compelled to share information, offer our perspective, and seek your support.
San Francisco Symphony management has proposed slashing the San Francisco Symphony Chorus budget by 80%. You read that correctly. 80%. The chorus accounts for a little over 1% of the overall budget and is vital in attracting audiences and donors. Simply put, ticket sales are higher when we are singing. The financial rationale for such severe cuts simply doesn’t add up. The Symphony has informed us that it projects a $12.5 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year. Putting aside the assumption that this deficit must be solved only through cuts rather than improved fundraising or patron development, cutting $800,000 of the Chorus’s roughly $1 million cost won’t cover this. Cutting 80% of their approximately $75 million in expenses across the board would save nearly $60 million, indicating these cuts unreasonably target the Chorus….
Moving toward a mostly unpaid chorus is a choice that reflects poorly on the management’s commitment to fair labor practices. Our unpaid colleagues contribute enormously, but it’s time to recognize that the national trend of relying on unpaid singers is an outdated and unfair practice that devalues our skills and talent. Every artist deserves a dependable job that reflects their contributions and addresses the rising cost of living, especially in the Bay Area.
Adding to this turmoil, esteemed Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen is leaving next year. This departure has raised questions about deeper issues within the Symphony’s management and artistic direction….
On what planet does a symphony orchestra need a dedicated full-time chorus?
If your symphony wants to schedule 8-10 major choral works in a season, then your chorus is rehearsing on a pretty full schedule.
Full-time might not mean 9-to-5 but it does mean that you have a consistent set of chorus members who aren’t reconstructing the sound of a great chorus with every new piece.
SF Symphony is not doing 8-10 choral works a season. No major orchestra in the US does more than two a season and maybe a Beethoven 9. Choral works are expensive to perform and rehearse.
I’d never heard that SF HAD a Symphony chorus and that it was paid and I’ve been in the business for four decades. Every orchestra I’ve worked with uses volunteers or students. In this day and age that’s crazy. This is something that doesn’t need to exist. NY has multiple volunteer choruses or uses excellent students from Westminster Choir College. A paid chorus is an absolute luxury, and one that a major symphony doesn’t need.
You obviously don’t know what you are talking about. The SFS Chorus has won multiple grammies and performs regularly throughout the year. Just check the season calendar.
The New York Philharmonic Chorus is comprised entirely of paid AGMA professional singers.
You do not have the slightest idea what you are talking about. What “business” are you in, precisely? Which crappy orchestras are you working with? Because if you want professional results doing real repertoire, you use professionals. You also clearly have no clue about the NY choral scene, btw.
Darling, I perform with major orhcestras as a Grammy nominated soloist allllllll the time, including the one concerned in this post. So can it.
In this day and age, we need to stop acting like singers are disposable. Singers are valuable, talented, and well-trained musicians that deserve to be paid.
Soooo, the past 23 years of my singing career with the SFSymphony have alllll been a dream…
And the experience in MN when they used St. Olaf or University of MN choruses the were under prepared and could not produce the sound that a symphonic chorus needs. (Volume, timbre, control of dynamics and heft of sound)
LA Phil usually collaborates with Master Chorale, which is a professional, paid chorus with their own season as well.
yes, the SFSC is REALLY called for roughly one concert set every single month (sometimes more, now that we will add live film scores more often. Choral works ARE expensive to perform and rehearse. Check out sfsymphony.org
Westminster Choir College is in transition due to a lawsuit over land being sold in Princeton. NYPhil started its own all-AGMA professional choir recently.
I am a former member of SF Symphony Chorus when Margaret Hillis and Vance George ran it. We easily did about 7 works per season. I remember starting with Die Jahrzeiten and Mahler 2nd, Messiah of course, Britten War Requiem, Les Noce, Beethoven 9. We also did works by Adam’s and Worinen.
A professional chorus you mean? Uh, on every planet on which anyone knows a single fucking thing about classical music, that’s where. BTW, they’re not full-time; they’re just paid. Learn to read.
“On what planet does a symphony orchestra need a dedicated full-time chorus?”
The San Francisco Symphony Chorus was never full-time.
There are, I believe, only two full-time professional choruses in the United States, Chanticleer (San Francisco) and Cantus (Minneapolis-St. Paul), and neither is a symphonic choir.
Do you sing? Who are you? Can you sightread in more than nine languages? Can you pull notes from thin air and sing them on cue and in tune with a group of others focused on doing the exact same thing concurrently? Do you have a degree in music performance? This would be a far far better planet if MORE choirs were paid, (especially full time!) rather than exploited for their passion. Your comment does not lean towards you truly having any idea what you are saying, unless you simply truly have a desire to degrade an entire spectrum within the music community.
How ridiculous. First of all, it’s not remotely full-time but a respectable part-time job, to be cobbled together with many others to make a living wage in one of the most cities in the world.
And I guess singers aren’t musicians to you? We have the same expensive degrees and loans and breadth of experience as any instrumentalist. The chorus is one of the things that has made the SF Symphony unique for many years but maybe no longer.
One million dollars divided among 32 people comes to about $31,000 a year. Clearly it’s not considered a full time position.
Most do.
The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus has always been all-volunteer. And very good.
Does the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus perform Saairaho, Ligeti, Scriabin, and John Adams? No? I didn’t think so. Does the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus get nominated for Grammy Awards for their stand-alone recordings? No? I didn’t think so. What really strikes me from your response is that you believe that the contributions of a chorister have no value. You see that singers are sources of extracted labor.
Yes – they do perform and have performed works of the difficulty you describe. I’m sure you have a good point to make, and it could have been made without denigrating the dedicated and skillful members of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus.
I do not denigrate them. Rather, I would wish them to be paid what they are worth. One thing that is lacking in this exchange are the voices of volunteer choristers who believe as fervently as you do that they should be working for no pay. You simply reap the benefit of their unpaid labor.
You’re just having a fantasy and trying to hang onto your destroyed argument. Celeste didn’t denigrate Cleveland’s singers at all.
If you want to pay for an Adella subscription you can see and hear them in Adams’s El Niño any time you wish. They also perform in an an opera each season (this season Magic Flute, next season Jenůfa).
Yes, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus is a fine group, but it is also unfortunate that excellent musicians are expected to honor a substantial rehearsal schedule and then sing for free. SF’s moving in this direction is highly perturbing.
Wonderful, and toi toi toi! Again, why are they not paid? Vocal musicians are severely undervalued, despite the fact that their performances bring patrons to the house in droves.
Thats an ironic suggestion…why is there not a free/volunteer Adella subscription, to listen to a performance where only half of the performers are paid for their skill and time?
Completely! That Adams production on Adella.live is truly one of a kind. They also crush it in Mahler 2, and their overall synergy with Franz is beautiful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5VFklJ5fI
The TCO choir performs all the Composers you have listed and regularly performs Adams works with him conducting his music. As for awards, the TCO chorus won several Grammys. In fact former SFSO MD MTT conducted them performing Carmina Burana in a Grammy Award winning performance.
That may well be true, but consider this… Why are vocal musicians expected to volunteer, but instrumental musicians are not? This is the crux of the issue.
I always thought the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus was pretty mediocre.
San Francisco Symphony is evidently ran by McKinsey now.
1) “Cutting 80% … across the board would save….”
I’m not sure they’re making any friends by suggesting that to be fair the orchestra should also be cut by 80%!
2) “Moving toward a mostly unpaid chorus … is an outdated and unfair practice…. Every artist deserves a dependable job”
Are they suggesting instead of cuts, they should hire more, of those 120 unpaid choristers?
3) “the Chorus’s roughly $1 million budget”
for 32 paid singers? which comes out to be $31,250 per singer? for how many performances per year?
32 paid singers, one chorus coordinator, one rehearsal pianist, and one chorus director. It’s really not that much, and certainly not even close to full time for the singers. The chorus runs on a shoestring.
That’s not what’s being suggested—the chorus is being targeted as an entirely dispensable budget item instead of an asset.
Surely a performance of Mahlers 2 and 8 would pay for the chorus several times over? Certified bankers
The remaining chorus members will be required to sing 4 times louder.
What’s sad is that there are thousands of people in the Bay area who could write a check for $12 million and not bat an eye. Maybe management has tried that; maybe the uber-wealthy don’t have any interest in the orchestra or chorus.
Truth. When nobody, or only a very tiny niche audience, really cares about what you do, you don’t deserve to be paid for it. That’s capitalism my friend.
The majority of the wealthy within the S.F. Bay Area are of the nouveau riche variety. They would rather donate big money to Donald Trump to help them keep the cries of ‘tax the rich’ away from them. Look no further than E. Musk for a prime example. The arts, such as they are, are not their priority . . . . I was under the impression that the S.F. Symphony was in good shape from a very big endowment (?). I imagine Covid has taken a toll on things, as it seems to have in many facets of public and private society.
What is the difference in the duties of the paid members vs. the unpaid members?
I’m sure there must be several, to warrant the pay, but what are they?
They are strong, highly qualified singers that serve as “anchors” for the rest of the chorus. They are expected to be solid on their parts from the first rehearsal, expediting preparation for the entire chorus, and improving its performance level. Also to be called on for incidental and rehearsal solos, and to make up small ensembles as needed.
Paid SFSC singers are given a music theory test, pay union dues, act as the main small-group singers, cover for soloists, and are assigned to every single rehearsal and concert, and so must clear their schedules for the whole season in advance. Volunteer choristers only need to commit to 4 programs to maintain chorus membership – they get flexibility dn a much lighter schedule.
I was also surprised that the members of the SFO Orchestra chorus are paid. I remember talking with Arthur Oldham about the choruses he founded and trained in the 1970s/80s/90s – the glorious Edinburgh Festival Chorus, the Chorus of l’Orchestre de Paris at the request of Barenboim and the Concertgebouw Orchestra Chorus. He also spent seven years working with the London Symphony Chorus during which it won 3 Grammy Awards. I do not think anyone was paid in those days, nor even today.
If Symphony management slashed crime by 80% instead of the Chorus budget, the chorus might actually be able to sing without dodging carjackers and muggers. Maybe neighborhood safety could be their next ‘grand performance’.
Next up, another fraternal fentanyl factory will likely shake up the arts scene.
Esa Pekka Solongagain is far too ‘enlightened’ for that gig.
Disappointing news, but I’m having a hard time imagining how the SFS Chorus (or any in-house symphony chorus) manages to use a $1 million annual budget. Director, chorus manager, and assistant chorus manager are obvious expenses. Even if the professional core is being paid AGMA rates, they are still presumably paid on a per-service basis. Same with the rehearsal pianists. Unlike stand-alone symphonic choruses with comparable budgets, there shouldn’t be a need to rent rehearsal or office spaces, hire pickup orchestras, or pay for a separate executive management team – all of which are major expenses for [Insert Name] Choral Society. This is all to say that I can sympathize with SFS management to some degree in their need to cut expenses where they can, but an 80% cut to any one area of the operation seems excessive and shortsighted.
Like a lot of businesses, they could just outsource the chorus and non-essential personnel, and just keep a bare-bone orchestra and rotation of guest conductors.
And opera companies should forego big name directors and hire an in-house resident designer, outsource the ballet, and put money where it’s most important — hiring great singers.
There are currently 6 symphonic choruses in the US who have some AGMA members: this professional core or group of singers is being paid AGMA rates, paid on a per-service basis.
“Outsourcing” choruses does not contribute to consistency, quality, excellence, or ensure a core of highly trained, loud-enough, skilled singers to partner with a world-class symphony.
Almost all Baroque and Classical choral masterworks were written for professional choirs, not amateur choirs.
It takes many amateur voices to replace one very loud, very clear, very trained professional singer (“trained” meaning both musical training and foreign language diction training). And the quality is not the same. Would you replace your two professional symphonic clarinets with a college or community clarinet choir? No. You would hear the difference immediately.
Having AGMA members also ensues that the chorus will be protected by 1/ union rules regarding reasonable breaks, 2/ further in-advance planning of rehearsals and auditions, 3/having a core of singers who sing every single concert requiring chorus (sometimes as many as 8 different major concerts per season, and if they are absent, a qualified AGMA sub sings in their place), and 4/ensures a more professional relationship with the orchestral players, who enjoy many protections that all-volunteer choruses don’t.
The 6 American symphonic choruses with at least some AGMA members are:
Chicago Symphony Chorus,
Grant Park Chorus (also in Chicago), New York Philharmonic (all members, this group was very recently founded), Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, LA Master Chorale (an independent choir often hired by the LAPhil), and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (32 AGMA members who act as the core of the larger ensemble). AGMA has a website that lists many additional AGMA Opera Choruses. It would be great if all American symphonies invested enough to maintain a core of professional singers to more closely mirror the professionalism of their players.
Of course there are many other paid (but cheaper than real AGMA) choirs in the country: Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Volti (SF Chamber Singers), San Francisco Choral Artists, American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque (only professional since 1998; hired the UC-Berkeley Chamber Chorus before that), Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn, and many major church choirs. But most of them sing with much smaller and quieter orchestras, or sing with organs in resonant churches, or sing a cappella concerts.
Why should SF keep up their standards?
San Francisco Symphony Chorus s one of the very best in the country, and one that was founded by Seiji Ozawa with a core of 30 AGMA singers. They sing a lot of Mahler. They sing a lot of premieres. They win a lot of Grammys. The money that supports the chorus is very well spent.
I still fail to understand most of the suggestions put forward by Laura Stansfield Pritchard. She talks about the need for “consistency, quality, excellence, [to] ensure a core of highly trained, loud-enough, skilled singers to partner with a world-class symphony,” – the implication being that this can only come from professional singers. That is certainly not true. Looking at the Edinburgh Festival, conductors like Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Maria Giulini, Sir Alexander Gibson and Sir Donald Runnicles along with a host of excellent orchestras like the London Symphony, Berlin, London and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Royal Scotish National and Concertgebouw orchestras among a considerable number of others, have been not merely delighted but thrilled to work with such a magnificent chorus of amateur singers in a wide variety of choral works. Just look at the DVD of the Verdi Requiem from the mid-1980s with Abbado and the London Symphony and the stellar soloists – Dame Margaret Price, Jessye Norman, Jose Carreras and Ruggero Raimondi. Or Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Paul Daniel with Renee Fleming and Sir Bryn Terfel as the major soloists. These are superb performances, as was that of Schoenberg’s Moses and Aaron under Sir Richard Armstrong.
The key in Edinburgh and a number of other amateur choruses working with top ranked professional orchestras is, I believe, not merely the singers themselves and their enthusiasm. It is in large measure the quality of the chorus director and an extensive auditioning system to ensure the type of amateur singer engaged meets the qualifications Laura Stansfield Pritchard considers only possible with a professional chorus. And her further suggestion that it “takes many amateur voices to replace one very loud, very clear, very trained professional singer” is, I submit, absolutely untrue in a huge number of cases.
Many of the singers you are claiming as “amateurs” are often paid in other settings. Many volunteer singers in American choruses are paid to sing elsewhere (for example, as section leaders in churches), and many “volunteer singers” are musical teachers and conductors ni other organizations. Those who have the loudest, most accurate, and best trained voices are worth money. That’s my only point.
Making a living as a professional singer in the USA is nearly impossible, mostly due to the “singers aren’t musicians” attitude so prevalent in this country. That and also the unwillingness to invest public funds in the support of high-quality, enriching musical experiences in anything close to the manner of what’s long been done in Europe (such as European radio symphony choruses, which have full-time positions for singers). I don’t know the details of the SFSO chorus budget, but I know that compensating a “core” of professional singers is not uncommon among top orchestra choruses. This isn’t an “all or nothing” situation, but rather nuanced with the local needs, traditions, and yes, cost of living factored in. I’ve been singing as a professional chorister for 35 years and it’s a good thing that I married well, or I’d be living on the street.
It seems the trend in US symphonic choruses has been actually going in the other direction over the last ten years. Grant Park Chorus has been entirely professional since 2012. (62 core members but performing with between 62 and 120 singers) New York Philharmonic established its own fully professional chorus in 2022 and the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir (performing with 50 – 90 singers) has become newly organised and just signed its first three year AGMA contract. LA Master Chorale is fully professional. Chicago Symphony Chorus is largely professional with some volunteers.
If SFSO were in a city with more money, they could have better fundraising prospects. One can certainly sympathize with the board and management who have trouble funding for an arts organization in a tough and uncultured place like San Francisco.
The numbers:
This conflict has been escalating ever since AGMA claimed in July that SF Symphony management “proposed slashing the [SFS] Chorus budget by 80 percent.” This would mean, AGMA said, reducing the current salary of the professional singers from $21,621 to $4,324 for the 2024–2025 season, which covers 26 performances and 56 rehearsals, a total of 82 services. Practically, this would be accomplished by having the AGMA choristers participate in fewer performances.
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/sf-symphony-chorus-strike-opening-night-canceled
Soprano and AGMA member Cheryl Cain, who’s sung with the SFS Chorus for 18 years, says that management “hasn’t offered a reasonable contract in over five years.” The choristers say they are paid roughly one-third of what substitute musicians in the orchestra earn per hour. “Singers are musicians,” Cain says. “Most of us have master’s degrees. We have the highest level of musical training, just as much as the members of the orchestra.”
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/music-news/was-strike-sf-symphonys-season-opener-inevitable