Issue: June 2020
This is the second time in my professional career that I have been forced into an extended work stoppage over which I had no control. The first was four years after I joined the Nashville Symphony, when the board shut the orchestra down in early February 1988, ostensibly because of the effects of the October 1987 market crash. Our return to work took nearly nine months. In those nine months, I saw … [Read more...]
Issue: October 2018
The 56th annual ICSOM conference was held August 22–25 and hosted by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Local 1. The conference was held this year at the Cincinnati Hilton Netherland Plaza, a magnificent historic hotel in the heart of downtown Cincinnati. The conference included the usual variety of reports, presentations and discussions. The schedule also included more opportunities for … [Read more...]
Issue: June 2018
A while back, one of my colleagues suggested that the ICSOM conference was nothing more than a big social gathering. Unfortunately, I suspect they were not the only person to have that perception. Few people know about the time and effort the Governing Board, along with the host orchestra and Local, put in to the planning of these four days to ensure that each year’s conference has the very best … [Read more...]
Issue: October 2017
This year’s conference, the 55th Annual ICSOM Conference, was held August 23-26 at the Adam’s Mark hotel in Buffalo, New York, and was hosted by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Local 92. The week began with a 72% partial eclipse on Monday, followed by a rainstorm on Tuesday that caused all sorts of travel problems, but Wednesday through the rest of the week the weather was perfect. … [Read more...]
Issue: June 2017
The ICSOM Governing Board has been discussing ways additional services and information can be provided to the members of ICSOM, and we have made some changes to the ICSOM website as a result. Any current member of an ICSOM orchestra who is registered on the website, can view and download current and archived ICSOM Settlement Bulletins, much of the materials and presentations from annual … [Read more...]
Issue: October 2016
The 54th ICSOM Conference was held August 24-27, 2016 at the Loews Madison Hotel in Washington DC. Our hosts were ICSOM’s resident orchestras of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—the National Symphony Orchestra and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra—and their local, the Metropolitan Washington DC Federation of Musicians, Local 161-710. Last year in Philadelphia, ICSOM … [Read more...]
Issue: March 2016
In my last column I wrote about the AFM’s pursuit of a new federal law to require AM/FM broadcasters to pay royalties to all musicians. The bill—nicknamed Fair Play, Fair Pay—would level the playing field so that AM/FM radio no longer has an unfair advantage over digital music services, and so musicians could finally be compensated for their artistry. Now I’d like to examine some of the AFM’s … [Read more...]
Issue: December 2015
Working together to achieve a common goal is the heart of unionism. And an important part of working together, of collaboration, is the communication that makes it all possible. In a union as large as the AFM, it’s important that musicians understand what everyone else is doing. In these next few issues of Senza Sordino I’d like to open up the dialog about issues that should concern us, so we can … [Read more...]
Issue: October 2015
Nearly 100 ICSOM delegates, officers and orchestra members, Local officers, AFM officers and staff, Players Conferences representatives, and attorneys were on hand August 25 to 29, for the 53rd ICSOM Conference at the Sonesta Philadelphia Hotel, and the total would have been even greater if two member orchestras, the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies, hadn’t been on tour in Europe. The 2015 … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2015
Recently I heard retired New York Times correspondent John Burns speak about his Pulitzer award-winning profile, written more than 20 years ago, of cellist Vedran Smailović during the Bosnian war. Dressed in formal evening attire, Smailović sat in the same spot every afternoon in the middle of the same Sarajevo street—which was more bomb crater than street—and played Albinoni’s Adagio in honor of … [Read more...]
