Houston Symphony cuts three jobs
main‘After a careful evaluation of existing staff operations and resources, the Houston Symphony has decided to reorganize some administrative departments to ensure that we have the right structure and people to continue implementation of our 10-year strategic plan,’ says Executive Director/CEO Mark Hanson.
He adds: ‘As part of this process, some existing staff members are moving into newly-defined positions that better align with our staffing and organizational needs, while others have been offered separation packages and early retirement benefits to help ease their transition.’
Three executive positions have been abolished, reducing the headcount to 74.
It’s not clear how many staff are affected.
Surely not a staff of 74! If that number includes the players it must be a very small symphony orchestra.
Cancel that, they do have over 70 administrative staff, many of whom are concerned with fundraising. Very different from the UK where arts organizations tend to be run on a shoestring.
Most large symphony orchestras in the US (LA, NY, SF, etc) have a staff of 100 or more, not including musicians. It takes a lot of people just to raise the money and sell the tickets, and that’s before you even consider production, planning, HR, etc.
Orchestras in small cities (~100K-200K people) will likely only have a staff of 5 or 6, and probably don’t have full-time musicians. Most other orchestras will be somewhere in between, depending on exactly how they’re managed and whether there’s a separate pops series, education programs, etc.