THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA has been called the best band in the land, but not all the reasons are necessarily musical: Recent figures show that the ensemble’s players, music director and top administrators are among the nation’s highest paid.
Considering the region’s relatively low cost of living, Cleveland may be the best city in the United States to be a full-time orchestral musician.
Salary figures from the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) show the minimum annual wage for members of the Cleveland Orchestra for the 2000-01 season was $88,920, placing them seventh among the 10 top-paying American orchestras with 52-week seasons. Musicians who have played in Cleveland for extended periods have a top scale of $99,320, putting them third in the nation in this category.
Although at least three other ensembles have higher wages in terms of number of dollars paid, they are located in cities that are much more expensive to live in than Cleveland.
The ICSOM wage chart shows that the New York Philharmonic had the highest minimum salary last season ($99,300) and the Chicago Symphony had the highest salary including seniority ($101,309). But these figures likely are topped by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, whose salaries are listed in both categories at $81,016.
But that does not include rehearsal or radio pay. Since the Met orchestra rehearses extensively and is compensated for every live Saturday-afternoon radio broadcast, its musicians are believed to be the highest-paid in the country.
None of these salary figures reflect benefits, including pensions. Cleveland last season lagged behind most of its top-10 colleagues, ranking ninth in the nation for its highest pension of $40,000. A musician in the Cleveland Orchestra must fulfill a “Rule of 90”—the total of 90 reached by adding the player’s age and years of service—to receive that figure.
Principal Players
The ICSOM salary figures also don’t show the pay received by any of the orchestra’s principal players, who negotiate higher individual contracts with management. Figures available publicly from Internal Revenue Service filings for the 1999-2000 season—the most recent year for which figures are available—show that Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster William Preucil was paid $321,664, and principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen received $174,863.
The IRS form lists three other employees of the Musical Arts Association, the orchestra’s parent organization, as among the organization’s five highest paid during the 1999-2000 season. They are associate executive director Gary Hanson ($201,461), cellist-personnel manager Ralph Curry ($172,512) and former director of development Patricia Wahlen ($170,677). The total number of Musical Arts Association employees who earned more than $50,000 during that season was 136, according to the IRS form.
For the same period, music director Christoph von Dohnanyi received $979,014, down from $1,035,438 the previous season, when he ranked sixth in the country in conductor salary. And executive director Thomas Morris was paid $535,527. The previous season, Morris’ salary was listed as $703,688, which would seem to have made him the highest-paid orchestra or opera administrator in the country. But this figure went beyond annual compensation, including a one-time sum of $279,618 in accumulated benefits.
Nevertheless, with cost of living taken into account, all of the Cleveland figures are comparable to or better than the fees that other orchestral players, conductors and administrators make in this country.
Richard J. Bogomolny, president of the Musical Arts Association, said the Cleveland salaries are in accordance with the skills required.
For many years, “There was a terrible imbalance in the salary-pension-benefit structure” for the orchestra’s musicians, said Bogomolny. “In recent years, that has been corrected. There was a realization that these people are highly skilled and that the wages and benefits perhaps had not come up to that level.”
Confirming this view from the other side of the footlights is Stephanie Tretick, a violist in the Pittsburgh Symphony and treasurer of ICSOM.
“We’re trained as much, if not more, than doctors and lawyers. What we do is a very precise skill,” said Tretick, who compiled ICSOM’s 2000-01 wage chart. “Most people are never paid what they’re really worth, but how do you measure it?”
Changing Times
Until the mid-1960s, when orchestral musicians became increasingly militant about salaries, benefits and working conditions, being a member of a major American orchestra was a part-time job. In Cleveland, the orchestra long was a revolving door: With short seasons, low pay and minimal benefits, Cleveland lost many musicians to other orchestras such as Boston, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia that could offer better compensation or longer seasons. The annual pension in the early 1970s was $3,000.
The Cleveland Orchestra negotiated its first 52-week contract, on the heels of the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, for the 1967-68 season, largely as a result of Blossom Music Center’s impending opening in the summer of 1968. After this milestone, Cleveland continued to creep upwards in salary, benefits and pension, attaining parity—at least in salary—with other major American orchestras only in the 1980s.
The orchestra’s musicians have been saying for years that the quality of the ensemble hinges on its ability to remain competitive in hiring and keeping the best players. Bogomolny, an amateur violist, agrees with the musicians.
He said the board has grappled with the issue. For instance, in the early 1990s, when the orchestra had an accumulated deficit of $6.3 million, trustees briefly discussed the possibility of reducing the ensemble by not filling vacancies. But that would have compromised quality, so the idea was dropped quickly.
“You don’t wind up with the Cleveland Orchestra if you try that,” said Bogomolny. “These individuals are highly skilled, but perhaps even more valuable when integrated into the whole.”
Still, the higher exposure required of principal players enables them to negotiate better contracts with their orchestras than section players. They lead their sections and play solos both from within the orchestra and as featured artists. Preucil, who is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost concertmasters, was paid a salary for the 1999-2000 season that was slightly higher even than the $319,600 salary that Glenn Dicterow made as concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic in a city far more expensive than Cleveland.
Several other New York principal players appeared to do slightly better than Cleveland musicians, though again, cost of living must be considered. Carter Brey, who sat near the back of the Cleveland Orchestra’s cello section from 1979 to 1981, earned $222,000 as principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic during the 1999-2000 season. The New York orchestra’s principal hornist, Philip Myers, earned $227,000.
Management
Bogomolny believes the heightened skills needed to play in an orchestra such as Cleveland’s extend naturally to its management. As former chief executive officer of Finast, he brings a corporate, for-profit view to the nonprofit world of the symphony orchestra, saying that the top orchestra administrators deserve to be compensated adequately for their abilities.
Morris, who negotiates his contract directly with Bogomolny, “has qualities that most executive directors don’t have,” said the board president. “He knows music, he knows business and he has knowledge of people in the field.”
Bogomolny also justifies the unusual post of associate executive director, which was created in Cleveland for former director of public relations Gary Hanson, who was the brains behind the successful Severance Hall renovation project.
“That position doesn’t exist in most places,” said Bogomolny. “But to have Tom carrying the whole load was not healthy. Our operations are more complex. We felt it was in the organization’s best interest to have a Gary Hanson-type person in that job. He’s at the top of his class.”
This article was first printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
