Phoenix Symphony Association board ratifies “catch-up and move forward” contract

Contract includes increased musician salaries, expanded artistic plans

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Symphony announced a landmark agreement with its orchestra musicians today, intended to raise musician salaries and reaffirm the organization's focus on artistic excellence.  Members of the Symphony's Board of Directors ratified the contract revision at a board meeting March 20.  Highlights of the contract include raising musician base salaries to $47,000 by 2011, the addition of musician “relief services” to provide more recovery time between concerts, and clarification of the various ensembles within the orchestra.

"This is an additional positive step forward for this orchestra I am proud to see the board of directors invest in our musicians by voting for this new contract," said Board Chairman, Gerald W. Murphy.  “Our institution is experiencing significant growth and we have had three years of balanced budgets and an all time high record in concert attendance last season.  With Phoenix now the fifth largest metro area the Board wants to provide an orchestra as a community asset and drawing card for economic growth equivalent to a city of that size.  The board is counting on and expecting the community to understand the need for these increased salaries and respond with financial support. Sixty percent of our revenue comes from our various classes of donors. We continue to build positive forward momentum in growing our business while we expand our much needed endowment fund and gain stability though additional investment by individuals, foundations and corporations,” Murphy went on to say. “We have a terrific new music director in Michael Christie and the orchestra is sounding just great and our community is responding very positively to our concerts this season.”

This new contract is an extension of the labor agreement adopted by The Phoenix Symphony Association board of directors in June of 2005.  That agreement was effective through June, 2009 and the new agreement extends the contract through 2011.  Rare among symphony orchestras, this “evergreen” contract provides the ability to renegotiate work rules and salary increases for the musicians annually.  The contract was devised within the context of a 25 year institutional vision and leverages the arrival of new Music Director, Michael Christie.

Board member Edwin Wolf, who chaired the Symphony Association's Contract Review Committee through the final stages of the process, said the ratification is “a significant step forward for the association and the musicians.”

“I'm hopeful it will be a continuation of the growth, and prominence, this organization deserves.  We have grown the base salary of our orchestra from $30,000 just three years ago to a new high today of $36,000 and now we will reach $47,000 in 2011,” he added.

Phoenix Symphony President and CEO Maryellen Gleason praised new General Manger, Jay Good, a recent hire from the New York Philharmonic, for aiding in the formation the new agreement, noting that his leadership and partnership with the orchestra negotiations committee is unprecedented and represents a new level of esprit de corps for The Phoenix Symphony.

“This is catch-up mode for our symphony.  Not only will this salary increase make a difference for our current orchestra members, it will help us bring additional talented musicians into The Phoenix Symphony to help Michael achieve his artistic vision and make progress toward the achievement of our institutional goals.” said Gleason.

 “Thanks to the successful completion of our contract negotiations, the Symphony orchestra and administration can now focus on the reason we are all in this business, to perform and educate people about classical music,” added Good.

Chuck Berginc, chairman of the Musicians' Contract Review Committee, noted that the agreement was substantial progress toward making musician compensation competitive. “The musicians of The Phoenix Symphony are happy to have ratified an agreement that contains salary increases for the next four seasons,” Berginc said.  “It is our hope that this will begin to bring our salaries up the ladder from the bottom of the list when compared to our peers.  We are also pleased to receive a longer term commitment from our Board of Directors to begin to put our salaries at the top of the list of financial expenditures.  We are glad to have these negotiations behind us so we can focus those our energies on continuing to perform great music for our patrons at the highest level.”

Founded in 1947, The Phoenix Symphony is ranked by budget size and artistic achievement among the top 35 professional orchestras in the United States. Its $11 million budget (for 2006-07) makes it the largest performing arts organization in Arizona.  As a fully professional orchestra for less than 25 years, the 76-member Phoenix Symphony presents an annual season from September through May, offering an unparalleled depth and breadth of programming and education programs. What began as an occasional group of musicians performing a handful of concerts each year (in a city of fewer than 100,000 people) today serves more than 300,000 people annually, with over 300 concerts and presentations throughout the greater Phoenix area and beyond.