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Topic: Labor contracts / tariffs / questions  (Read 1370 times)

Offline 8_octaves

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Labor contracts / tariffs / questions
on: April 09, 2015, 04:59:10 PM
Hi all,

Nigel Kennedy states in his autobiography the following (I try to approximately translate into English, since I've got the German version of the book) :

Quote from: Nigel Kennedy
[...]The administrative rules' stuff makes it nowadays difficult. Only one minute exceeding the time-limit determined for the orchestra, and somebody of the pay-office will have to pay a whole fortune for the extra-minutes!

It seems the establishment doesn't like uncontrolled increase of people's interest in classical music. In America, it's even worse, at many points. Not long ago I guested with Prokofiev's first violin-concerto at the West Coast. It was only a short concert, but my performance seems to have been successful. The audience applauded, and even the orchestra joined in the applause, and an encore was demanded by the audience.

Since I was called onto the stage again and again, I gave a short encore, by which obviously, as a positve effect, the evening was even better "filled" and the demands for "more" at least could be met to a certain degree.

But the next day, my American agent, who had been attendant at the concert, sent the following Fax to John (i.e.: John Stanley, Kennedy's manager. He wrote the preface of the autobiography, too.) :

Quote from: Fax
"You surely have heard about Nigel having been unbelievably successful in San Francisco. Orchestra and audience really were enraptured! / really loved him! ...

But I still want to inform you that Nigel gave an encore on the evening I was attendant, and the next one two. In the bigger orchestras of the USA people don't like these actions very much. The audience, of course, was enthusiastic, but administrative management's department didn't like that at all.

You should talk to Nigel about that before the New York concert. If it happened in New York again, it would be a very bad nonconformance / mistake."

It seems I had been terribly wrong.
It seems I hadn't been to play for a normal audience, but for an "ever-so-small" man, who, sitting somewhere with the earnings of the evening, and with a pocket calculator and a Rolex-watch.

What an absolute crap!

Of course, the agent only had reported about the opinion of those people there. And it's clear, that my acting had made him quite nervous.If the show had exceeded the time-limit limited by the american labor union, then it would have been really irresponsible of me. But that wasn't the case. Not even nearly. I know that, until a short time ago, big orchestras on the East Coast had been having a clause in their contract, which allowed them to engage ONLY soloists who obligate themselves to NOT GIVING ANY ENCORES.

So, there's no wonder, that classical music "is sitting in the dark."

Classical music never has been able to escape the obstinate elitarism of the "guild" and the total blindness of the record-companies. Maybe I'm a punk, but I'm not of the sort of people the rainbow-press badmouthes. But perhaps in the sense, that I don't like to completely obey / take orders from the establishment. Of that, I'm really proud, and I hope to shatter the barrier and that it breaks down.[...]

My questions are:

1 ) Do these / such contracts still exist ?
2 ) What do you think about the situation given ?
3 ) I have spotted in my life many pianists giving encores. And that, after having played orchestral works (piano + orchestra ), too. And often. Should there be ANY problem ?
4 ) Kennedy was called onto the stage again and again. If he hadn't played the encore, then, but only continued to come out onto the stage again and again for a very long time: What would the "tariffers" say, then?

Cordially, 8_octaves!
"Never be afraid to play before an artist.
The artist listens for that which is well done,
the person who knows nothing listens for the faults." (T. Carreņo, quoting her 2nd teacher, Gottschalk.)

Offline j_menz

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Re: Labor contracts / tariffs / questions
Reply #1 on: April 10, 2015, 12:01:55 AM
Not sure it's down to the minute, but orchestras are payed for the time they are there, and are expensive. Not a happy situation, but it us what it is, and concert profitability is precarious at best.

For solo recitals, or small groups, the issue doesn't arise as much (depending on how the fees are calculated), so encores don't give rise to the same cost considerations.

It's never going to be a happy situation where art meets soulless bean-counter.
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left" -- Oscar Levant

Offline 8_octaves

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Re: Labor contracts / tariffs / questions
Reply #2 on: April 11, 2015, 02:27:07 AM
Not sure it's down to the minute, but orchestras are payed for the time they are there, and are expensive. Not a happy situation, but it us what it is, and concert profitability is precarious at best.

For solo recitals, or small groups, the issue doesn't arise as much (depending on how the fees are calculated), so encores don't give rise to the same cost considerations.

It's never going to be a happy situation where art meets soulless bean-counter.

Hi j_menz,

thanks for your reply! And you are, I think, especially right with your last sentence. Soulless bean-counters..

Only once I had experienced "money"-topics, this was even on our absolutely irrelevant and amateurish "final school's out-concert" of which I talked in the audition-thread. EVEN THEN, money played a role!

Because, my music-teacher told us, that we had to pay GEMA-fees, because of Albeniz's works I played: He was dead for more than 70 years, then, but I played from the SCHOTT-(silvery-colored) Edition, and that, in addition to even more modern pieces from the jazz-field, the jazz-group of our "team" performed, too. I said to my teacher: "Oh no, can't that fees be avoided? Nobody would notice... ;D ;D.." but listen: He said, then, that EVEN in such small, irrelevant school-concerts' auditory there may sometimes be "spies" who would report to the Gema.  >:(

So we had to demand entrance fees. I never exactly got to know how much we had to pay from these fees to the Gema, but I know, that the amount which was left to us, then, was, at last, enough, to have a marvellous evening (many of the participants had joined) in a bar directly vis-a-vis the school.  ;D

We ( or at least: I ) were / was drunken like mules!  ;D ;D

But of course, that's only a side-view to the very special topic "money".

"Money makes the world go round", it seems. :-\...Be it tariffes, labor unions, Gema, fees, ...

Cordially, 8_octaves!
 
"Never be afraid to play before an artist.
The artist listens for that which is well done,
the person who knows nothing listens for the faults." (T. Carreņo, quoting her 2nd teacher, Gottschalk.)

Offline michael_sayers

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Re: Labor contracts / tariffs / questions
Reply #3 on: May 12, 2015, 10:13:35 PM
Because, my music-teacher told us, that we had to pay GEMA-fees, because of Albeniz's works I played: He was dead for more than 70 years, then, but I played from the SCHOTT-(silvery-colored) Edition . . .

Hi 8_octaves,

How would anyone know what edition was used?  If the music content now is in the public domain, surely there can be no fee associated with its performance.  You can compose a whole opera based on such music, have it performed and not owe G.E.M.A. anything!


Mvh,
Michael

Offline chopinlover01

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Re: Labor contracts / tariffs / questions
Reply #4 on: May 13, 2015, 03:57:07 AM
It's never going to be a happy situation where art meets soulless bean-counter.
Might have to steal this for my senior quote  :P
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