Life and Work in Symphony Orchestras

In the 1996 Summer issue of The Musical Quarterly [80(2), pp. 194-219], J. Richard Hackman, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and Jutta Allmendinger, a professor of sociology at the University of Munich published a large-scale study of 78 professional symphony orchestras from four nations. Over the years, within the orchestral world, their study has been widely circulated, referred to and quoted. Perhaps their most legendary finding was in the area of job satisfaction, where orchestra musicians were found to be less happy at work than airline flight attendants and prison guards. That same year, in Harmony [Issue 2, April 1996], Professor Hackman was interviewed by the Symphony Orchestra Institute’s founder Paul R. Judy. Click here to read the interview.  Find other orchestra related Hackman/Allmendinger papers here.

QUESTION: Has anything changed in the intervening 16 years? You decide and make a comment. What do you think?