Stephen Marc Beaudoin writes an interesting post today about the plight of the professional ensemble singer in the Portland market (and I would guess in many others as well). Here’s a snippet from the complete post:
Why do ensemble singers – many of them (of us) highly trained, professional, possessors of advanced music degrees – continue to accept sub-standard wages for the services we provide to ostensibly professional-level music ensembles?
Why have orchestral musicians and opera singers managed to organize themselves well, to form powerful unions and demand (and receive) appropriate wages and benefits, when ensemble singers – in Portland and elsewhere – continue to lend formidable skills for sometimes barely above minimum wage?
This has been rolling through my head, and coming out of the mouths of frustrated and undervalued Portland ensemble singers, for months now.
It’s a good question. And he phrases it the right way, because it is the fault of the singers, not their employers. Over the years, instrumental musicians have built unions and a base rate of pay (known as union scale) by banding together and bargaining collectively with employers. Classical instrumentalists have helped further their cause when they are not in a established collective bargaining unit by refusing work if it isn’t up to union scale. This isn’t to say that some don’t turn down work that doesn’t meet scale, especially if they’re hard up for money. But over the years, this practice of turning down work unless it meets certain minimum pay requirements has resulted in most of the major gigs in town raising their rates (if not to scale, at least to a less insulting level).
What the professional ensemble singers in this town need to do is organize and start to demand better wages for what they do. And they should. The city’s best ensemble singers are a priceless asset – and they’re largely invisible to most of us (even those of us who are deeply immersed in the classical music scene of the area). The best part about organizing is that it limits the amount of cannibalizing of each others’ gigs that might occur (i.e., Susan turns down a low-paying gig, but Nancy, the next person the contractor calls, takes it anyway). It will take a lot of effort and discipline to make any attempt at organizing effective. The AFM (American Federation of Musicians) in Portland has been making a great effort to get jazz and combo players to join the union (they’re in a similarly, perhaps even worse, pay situation), but the lifestyle and ethos of the non-classical musicians (and the attitudes of the club owners who hire them for a pittance) are making it a hard sell (but not completely ineffective).
I hope that the hard-working, beautifully voiced professional ensemble singers of Portland get their due someday – they deserve it. And think about them in this season of vocal seasons. Most of what you’re paying to hear isn’t paying those wonderful voices up there very well at all.