Blog

Musicians and Home Office Tax Deductions

This is the last in our series, “Things a Musician Should Know about Taxes.” As usual, William Hunt is our resident Polyphonic.org  tax expert. Not only is he a superb violinist, he also has an MBA in finance from the Simon School at the University of Rochester. I don’t know of anyone more knowledgeable than Bill[…]

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Gerald Elias: Violinist, Author & Blogger

Jerry Elias, former violinist with the Boston and Utah Symphonies and author of four murder mysteries with a blind violin pedagogue as the protagonist, has agreed to be an occasional blogger for Polyphonic. In addition to writing mysteries Jerry has much to say about classical music, performance practise, playing violin, and much more. His fourth[…]

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Improving Parts (and Scores) for Orchestral Musicians

After many wonderful years of horn playing with most (if not all) of the major orchestras in the UK, and touring all over the world with them, and others it was time to hang up my ‘hooter’ and think of something else to do. I have had an interest in computers and music typesetting for[…]

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News from the North

There have been been several developments in the Twin Labor Disputes in the State Least Likely To Experience Labor Disputes (Or At Least Not-Nice Ones). None of them offer much visible hope for quick resolution of either situation. On the Minnesota Orchestra front, Graydon Royce of the Minneapolis StarTribune, who has done as good a[…]

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In memoriam 2012

The more-or-less annual tribute from Polyphonic.org to our colleagues who left us in 2012 is finally online; my apologies to those who were waiting for it and no doubt lost patience many weeks ago. I knew a distressing number of those on this list. Some I knew just in passing (Mark Flint, Geoffrey Fushi, Bob[…]

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A normal strike

It’s a measure of just how bizarre is the state of labor relations in the orchestra field that only now, months into the most brutal negotiating season in memory, are we seeing the the first “normal” labor dispute – by which I mean a strike (and not a lock-out), not immediately settled (and thus more[…]

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A Timpanist’s Memoirs

Thomas Akins, Principal Timpanist with the Indianapolis Symphony from 1965 to 1991, has published his memoirs, Behind the Copper Fence: A Lifetime on Timpani. His book is filled with reminisces about his many years with the Indianapolis Symphony, his training as a timpanist, including seven summers (1960-66) in the League’s Institute for Orchestral Studies with[…]

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Depreciation of Musical Instruments

It’s tax time, so here’s our second Editor’s Choice in this series of tax related articles. William Hunt is our resident Polyphonic.org  tax expert. Not only is he a superb violinist, he also has an MBA in finance from the Simon School at the University of Rochester. I don’t know of anyone more knowledgeable than Bill[…]

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Breaking Up with Beethoven

Go out to hear an orchestra concert tonight and chances are the orchestra will be playing Beethoven.  The most recent Orchestra Repertoire Report, from ’09 – ’10, details that 137 orchestras in America performed Beethoven’s music 457 times that season.  His ninth, seventh, and fifth symphonies were ranked first, second and third respectively among the[…]

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Fun with Financing in Nashville

Some rather alarming headlines have appeared in the past few days in the Nashville Press, the best of which was WDEF’s Nashville Symphony Mired in Debt: The Nashville Symphony is in danger of defaulting on $102 million in bonds that were used to build the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Symphony CEO and President Alan Valentine told[…]

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1
Musicians and Home Office Tax Deductions
2
Gerald Elias: Violinist, Author & Blogger
3
Improving Parts (and Scores) for Orchestral Musicians
4
News from the North
5
In memoriam 2012
6
A normal strike
7
A Timpanist’s Memoirs
8
Depreciation of Musical Instruments
9
Breaking Up with Beethoven
10
Fun with Financing in Nashville