Issue: December 2019
In 1858, during a campaign speech for the US Senate, Abraham Lincoln stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” referring to the need for our country to agree about the slavery issue—or face destruction. While he lost that specific election to Stephen A. Douglas, we know that Lincoln eventually was victorious, both in winning the presidential election two years later and (posthumously) … [Read more...]
Issue: October 2019
This past year, ICSOM Chairperson Meredith Snow and I coauthored articles and worked together in establishing relationships with important media contacts. In advance of ICSOM’s annual conference in August, we spoke about our upcoming event with two local journalists: a reporter from a Salt Lake City newspaper and a Utah arts critic. While their articles were published just a few hours apart, they … [Read more...]
Issue: June 2019
At both the 2016 AFM convention in Las Vegas and the 2016 ICSOM Conference in Washington, DC, resolutions were adopted in support of substitute musicians receiving the same per-service base pay as the regularly contracted musicians in our orchestras. I thought that it would be important to visit this topic three years later to see the progress that ICSOM has made in this area, as well as to … [Read more...]
Issue: March 2019
As readers of my previous reports will have noted, I believe that ICSOM has an important role to play in communication: between orchestras, within the larger Federation, and with the wider world. That’s why I and the Governing Board have put a lot of our effort into improving ICSOM’s social media presence (Note: see the October 2017 issue), relaunching the conductor evaluation program (Note: see … [Read more...]
Issue: December 2018
In October, I had the opportunity to meet musicians of two ICSOM orchestras, under very different circumstances. On Friday, October 12, I traveled to Chicago to support the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra musicians during their strike. For eight hours I joined them on the picket line, marched from the Civic Opera House to Daley Plaza for their rally, and delivered a speech there. Before the rally … [Read more...]
Issue: October 2018
For many years, Paul Gunther has been the caretaker of Orchestra-L, ICSOM’s established and official listserv. As the owner and chief moderator of the list, Paul led the four-member team that approved new subscribers as well as the news items and follow-up comments that appeared there. In addition, Paul became accustomed to the quirks of working with the Yahoo group list, and there were … [Read more...]
Issue: June 2018
This month, the League of American Orchestras (LAO), the Sphinx Organization, and the New World Symphony are jointly launching an initiative that will provide support to Latino and African-American musicians who are auditioning for orchestral positions. These organizations are making a commitment to address the lack of African-American and Latino musicians in US orchestras. As reported by … [Read more...]
Issue: March 2018
The founding of ICSOM in the early 1960s was a result of the desire and need that symphonic musicians felt to have greater control in their contract negotiations. ICSOM was the first of what are now five player conferences within the AFM. The other groups are composed of musicians who perform in US regional (ROPA) and Canadian (OCSM) orchestras, theatre musicians (TMA), and musicians of the … [Read more...]
Issue: December 2017
As stated in our bylaws, the duties of ICSOM President include the responsibility of supervising ICSOM’s conductor evaluation program. This is an area where I have had much experience, having served as the administrator of ROPA’s conductor evaluation bank for nearly ten years. ICSOM’s conductor evaluation program had its origins exactly 50 years ago. In 1967, the results were hand-tabulated. … [Read more...]
Issue: October 2017
ICSOM is very active on Twitter. Since 2009, we have generated nearly 10,000 tweets about classical music, orchestras, and the arts. Today ICSOM has over 9000 Twitter followers. The account was created and maintained by former ICSOM Chair Bruce Ridge. Upon his departure from the Governing Board in August 2016, ICSOM’s social media duties were divided among several GB members. It has been an … [Read more...]
