In early 2004 my new Saturn abruptly caught fire as I was driving home from an orchestra rehearsal. I pulled the flaming carriage over, got my instrument out, and ran away just before it exploded. You can check out that part of the story here. This was, to put it...
I often wondered as I entered the classical music freelance world how one could possibly put together an income in this business. Some politically smart auditions I took my last year of graduate school helped me join the Chicago freelance scene fairly smoothly,...
I am a big fan of gig stories from classical musicians (you can read my own stories here). I had an e-mail sent to me a little while back letting me know about bassist Justin Locke and his book of classical music gig stories titled Real Men Don’t Rehearse....
What, exactly, is a “regional” orchestra? For the purposes of this article, regional orchestras will be defined as organizations that employ professional musicians but do not offer a salary and other benefits of full-time employment. The organizational...
This is the fourth installment of my Road Warrior without an Expense Account series. The intent of this installment is to highlight the increased competition for the progressively decreasing full-time orchestral positions. The statistics I present here are only...
