Category - Miscellaneous

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Justice for extras
2
Remembering Len Leibowitz
3
Philly out of the AFM-EP Fund?
4
How to kill a mediation
5
Louisville: a local view
6
How to Sell New Music
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Some real innovation for a change
8
The bottom-up theory of institutional accountability
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Leonard Leibowitz, DILC: 1938-2011
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Nixon goes to Louisville

Justice for extras

Drew McManus analyzed the effect of the new collective bargaining agreement in Philly on the relative compensation of the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians in a post at Adaptistration. His conclusions were not positive: Philadelphia Orchestra’s recent agreement places it firmly below traditional peers, including the Cleveland Orchestra. For the first time in the history of the[…]

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Remembering Len Leibowitz

The memorial service for Len Leibowitz was held on Sunday afternoon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was moderated – if that’s the right word – by Steve Flamhaft, a lawyer who had grown up with Len in Brighton Beach and had gone to high school, Bucknell and law school with him as[…]

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Philly out of the AFM-EP Fund?

This is potentially a very big deal: The American Federation of Musicians and Employers Pension Fund (the “Fund”) said today that an agreement reached by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association is the culmination of a strategy to avoid its obligation to pay the Fund contributions of up to $35 million it owes for benefits earned by[…]

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How to kill a mediation

Something quite unusual happened in Louisville last week; a mediator called one of the parties to the mediation a liar in public. It was, of course, phrased more diplomatically than that: Mediator Henri Mangeot presented both sides with a contract proposal Thursday that was ultimately accepted by the orchestra’s board and management, but rejected by[…]

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Louisville: a local view

This was sent as a letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal but not published. Unfortunate, as it is a very thorough look at the situation from an experienced local observer: One really doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry in response to Chuck Maisch’s column about the Louisville Orchestra that appeared in the Courier-Journal on[…]

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Some real innovation for a change

Kudos to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for doing something both important and innovative: The Los Angeles Philharmonic has seized the initiative in guiding a national teaching program based on El Sistema, the Venezuelan-based movement that weds music teaching and social work. The orchestra announced on Tuesday that it would open an office, host yearly conferences[…]

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The bottom-up theory of institutional accountability

Buried in an article in yesterday’s Courier-Journal article about the state of the Louisville negotiations (which are being mediated by Ralph Craviso, as discussed in this post) was this gem: In an essay that appeared on the Forum page in The Courier-Journal last month, orchestra board president Chuck Maisch laid responsibility for the orchestra’s woes[…]

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Leonard Leibowitz, DILC: 1938-2011

Len Leibowitz, whose tenure as ICSOM Counsel was so long and distinguished that his name tag and table tent at ICSOM Conferences, by popular consensus, read “Leonard Leibowitz, Distinguished ICSOM Legal Counsel,” died this morning in Boca Raton, Florida. He had suffered from a string of serious health issues in recent years, but – as[…]

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Nixon goes to Louisville

The appointment of Ralph Craviso to mediate the Louisville Orchestra labor dispute has caused some head-scratching in the orchestra industry, a public example of which was Drew McManus’ post of a few days ago: The only question in my mind upon hearing the news was “What, was Governor Scott Walker busy?” Word on the street,[…]

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