Issue: July 2006
ICSOM’s Financial Outlook Healthy As the current fiscal year comes to an end, I’ve had the opportunity to give ICSOM a financial checkup. I’m happy to say ICSOM passed the physical! The past year has seen some good developments. We now have a high-yield money market account where we can park money temporarily in the same bank as ICSOM’s active accounts. Transfers can be made immediately, while … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2006
As Adopted by the International Executive Committee The title of the Symphony Department shall be changed to the Symphonic Services Division. The Administrator of the Symphony Department and operating head of the Orchestra Services Program shall serve as Director of the Symphonic Services Division, to be appointed to that position by the AFM President, and to be designated by the President … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2006
After service in the Army Air Corp in World War II, Bill attended the University of Tennessee on the GI Bill and continued his involvement in the labor movement. He subsequently became a member of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union, the Newspaper Guild, and AFL-CIO Local 3017. He served at numerous levels of union functions, as a Local union steward, council delegate, … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2006
1987 The ICSOM Conference adopts a resolution calling for the appointment of a structure committee to consider options for possible restructuring of the player conferences in relation to the International AFM and local unions. ICSOM legal counsel Leonard Leibowitz prepares the Structure Committee report in July 1988. The members of the Structure Committee are: Irving Segall, Chair … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2006
Minnesota Orchestra’s ICSOM delegate, librarian Paul Gunther, was recently named the administrator of ICSOM’s mailing lists. Paul reports that the Minnesota Orchestra will tour European summer festivals at the end of August. Because of the tour, this may be the first ICSOM Conference that will see no delegate from the Minnesota Orchestra in attendance. Another consequence of the August tour will … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2006
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra Picks Itself Up Out of the Dust Surrounded, bleeding heavily from multiple wounds, taking shots from management, media, local union, labor board, and even each other, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra had a rough few months last season. This short progress report on the SLSO’s recovery is as much a testament to the seemingly boundless optimism and good will of the … [Read more...]
Issue: May 2006
The Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (PRSO) is ICSOM’s newest member, and that is something that takes both the PRSO and ICSOM to another level. The former because we have become part of the great family of symphonic musicians working towards shared goals; and the latter to have as a member an orchestra so representative of the diversity that exists in the symphonic orchestra world. The musicians of … [Read more...]
Issue: Chairperson's Reports
Just a few weeks ago, I came back from my second trip to Puerto Rico. There I helped members of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (PRSO), including orchestra committee chair and Local 555 president José Martin, negotiate with the management of the PRSO and the Corporación de las Artes Musicales (CAM), the governmental agency that oversees the PRSO and other musical arts in Puerto Rico. It is a … [Read more...]
Issue: May 2006
When I was a student, which seems an alarmingly long time ago, I remember reading a satirical piece called “An Efficiency Expert Looks at a Symphony Orchestra.” I thought I had saved a copy in my files, but a lengthy search the other afternoon proved fruitless. So, I “googled” it, and sure enough, I found a portion of it on some obscure website. The two excerpts I remembered most clearly were … [Read more...]
Issue: Counsel's Columns
Today’s “Peculiar Institution” The symphony orchestra is surely the only institution which, in times of fiscal distress, blames the crisis on its product and then declares that the solution lies in downgrading the quality thereof! This phenomenon was never more glaring than in the recent contretemps in Louisville, an orchestra which, after a glorious period of making some of the finest recordings … [Read more...]
