Author - Robert Levine

1
Colorado and the AFM
2
Music and politics, Part the Nth
3
Senza Sordino Editor Richard Levine: An Editor’s Parting Thoughts
4
What I did on my summer vacation
5
A Week with the Paradise Orchestra
6
Just wrong
7
On playing pieces for the last time
8
Some more words on sub pay and Minnesota
9
Justice for extras – some practical considerations
10
Sub pay in Minnesota – the blame game

Colorado and the AFM

The invaluable Norman Lebrecht once again breaks a story: Musicians in the Colorado Symphony Orchestra have filed to decertify from their union, the American Federation of Musicians., from representing them in contract negotiations. The causes of dissension are obscure and both sides are staying tight-lipped, but a petition has been filed here and a vote[…]

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Music and politics, Part the Nth

The Toronto Symphony finds itself in a kerfluffle, summarized neatly in an editorial in the Toronto Star: Talk about striking the wrong note. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is way off base with its decision to cancel performances this week by the Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa because of her social media comments attacking the Ukrainian government.[…]

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Senza Sordino Editor Richard Levine: An Editor’s Parting Thoughts

Richard Levine has the distinction (along with the late Henry Shaw) of being the longest-serving editor of Senza Sordino in ICSOM’s history. His thoughts on departing from the post were contained in a long article in the August 2014 edition of the newsletter. Richard has been a friend for a long time, so I will[…]

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What I did on my summer vacation

Quite literally what I did for two weeks last summer.

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Just wrong

The New York Youth Symphony is concerned about exposing its members to music that was sung by Nazis: Jonas Tarm had won the kind of opportunity most young composers can only dream of: the New York Youth Symphony had commissioned a piece from him and planned to play it this Sunday at Carnegie Hall. But[…]

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On playing pieces for the last time

One of the oddities of an orchestral career is the lack of control that we have over what we play. A consequencesof that odd fact is that, towards the end of a career, it’s possible to state with some certainty that one will have played a work for the last time. I’ve been musing on[…]

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Some more words on sub pay and Minnesota

The folks at soundnotion.tv hosted a discussion with Drew McManus and myself on the subject of substitute pay and how it was handled in last year’s Minnesota Orchestra settlement. The discussion was moderated (very well, I thought) by David MacDonald and Sam Merciers. It can be watched on YouTube here. I felt the discussion covered[…]

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Justice for extras – some practical considerations

There was an unusual amount of feedback on my post last week about the pay disparity between full-time musicians and subs in Minnesota and how that might have come about. Some of the feedback confirmed my suspicions that the root of the problem was a “new model” mindset on the part of some board members.[…]

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Sub pay in Minnesota – the blame game

One of the issues at play during the Year of Three Lockouts continues to reverberate around the symphonoblogosphere – the question of pay for substitute and extra musicians, and in particular the reduction in that pay that was part of the Minnesota settlement. Drew McManus called attention to it in a year-in-review post, where he[…]

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