Posted by Jay Bertolet on November 12, 1999 at 08:10:36:
In Reply to: Re: Training/Pre-professional Orchestras... posted by Barry Guerrero on November 11, 1999 at 23:53:38:
The New World Symphony Orchestra is based on Miami Beach, in South Florida. Technically, it is a student/training ensemble but the schedule is VERY rigorous as they do national and international tours and classes and lots of large orchestral and small chamber ensemble concerts.
I would be very careful about becoming involved in either New World or the Chicago Civic these days though. At the last ICSOM convention, there was alot of talk about these two ensembles and how they were starting to give the musicians union a problem. The trick here is that such ensembles pay almost nothing in wages to their musicians. This allows the management of these institutions to underbid local arts groups for jobs because of their low overhead, thus taking jobs away from union musicians. The union can't generally do anything about this because these institutions are technically educational in nature. The situation has gotten so bad here in South Florida that the union had to negotiate a "fence" agreement with New World that helps to define what New World activities the union will and will not sanction. Unfortunately, New World has yet to sign this agreement even though it expired at the end of last season. As a result, the delegates of the ICSOM convention voted a resolution that would affect New World. One of the nicer benefits of being at New World is the steady stream of masterclasses given by guest artists from major orchestras. ICSOM voted to recommend that no ICSOM orchestras send artists for these masterclasses anymore, until the fence agreement is signed. I don't know much about the situation in Chicago so maybe someone knowledgable on that front will post about it. What I do know is that the Chicago ICSOM delegate was the one who approached our ICSOM delegate in setting up the resultant resolutions, and he relayed the fact that they were having similar problems with the Civic.
Considering all of this, I have advised my students to consider New World only as a last option and with great trepidation at that. Besides, it sounds like there are other choices available that don't have all the baggage that New World does. Hopefully this situation will be amicably and quickly resolved.