Driving for Dollars

In the San Francisco Bay Area, all of the union regional orchestras allow any musician to miss one rehearsal per subscription set. The San Francisco Symphony, Ballet, and Opera do not allow this, but for most of us, that is not much of our income, and if you’re playing a week with them, you’re making enough money that missing a rehearsal is not necessary. There are about 20 orchestras in the Bay Area that do allow missing rehearsals during subscription sets. This is something that conductors and personnel managers don’t like, but they know that it is not something we’re willing to give up. Most understand that we are scraping together a meager existence and that it would be impossible to do so if they were more strict. The funny thing is, that if the orchestras were more organized, many of the conflicts could be easily avoided. The orchestras, for the most part, are unwilling to put in the extra effort, and until they do, there will continue to be conflicts and we’ll continue to miss rehearsals. There are 9 Bay Area regional orchestras offering paid sick days at this point, which does help, even if it’s only 1 sick day per year.

Juggling schedules is a pain and we do have to take leaves from orchestras some years, depending on how the schedules line up. Most orchestras around here are not super strict, with the exception of two; the Fresno Philharmonic and the Oakland East Bay Symphony. In Fresno, they offer a lot of work, and require a relatively high percentage of sets. They have not successfully fired anyone for missing too many yet, but they have given notice that they will be more strict now. In Oakland, we must perform 60% of the sets offered over a 2 year period, which is quite flexible, but if you don’t do enough, you’re fired. This has happened a few times. I am contracted with 6 orchestras and it seems to work out most years, so I’ll keep 6 as long as I can.