I turned around a well known performing arts house.
The demand for performances is usually met by an oversupply of talented performers.
Chicago appears to be the third highest paid symphony behind San Fran and L.A. but in front of Boston and New York.
In terms of equity, they will have a hard time crying poor.
Where they could argue is around the change in pension provisions. I know that management will be trying to cut long term financial risks but if they want to keep staff then benefits are key.

In my hometown, symphony musicians were not paid very much so they had to have other jobs as well—but the symphony was not seen as a career path, but as a privilege.

I now live in a smaller town & The symphony tickets: decent seats are $20-$35 each… If you want to really good seats you can double that number.

So the symphony is NOT like a library where everyone has FREE access to performances.

Speaking of the library, you can check out any symphony performance you want for free—From famous symphonies all around the globe.

I had symphony tickets for three seasons. But I stopped going because unless you’re young enough to get the student discount, or you want to take the nosebleed seats, it really is not something that most people can afford to do.

Given that the library has a free music streaming app, anyone that truly wants to, can hear a symphony for free at home. Why, you could become an expert on the symphony and never have heard a live performance!

Admittedly, in the olden days you couldn’t get free music streamed to your home or a cd at your local library. Once upon a time, a town actually needed a symphony.

I think tax-supported art might be a poor idea. After all, our art museum is FREE and open to the public and self-supported by PRIVATE donations. Wow! Our zoo, on the other hand, which is tax funded, is so expensive that I can’t afford to take my kids there because we can’t get in the gates for less than $40. Personally I think the zoo is obnoxiously expensive because the fundraisers are unmotivated. Why spend any time getting private funding when they can fleece the local populace?

It’s much cheaper for us to just go to a ball game ——I can buy tickets for $10 a seat & our very good hockey team only charges $15 a seat!

If the symphony cannot support itself via private donations (and with ticket prices comparable to a really good hockey game) then I say its time has passed and shut it down. I’ll check out a free London Symphony CD at the library and listen to it on my way to see a live baseball game.

I should proudly mention that we have a highly ranked opera house in our town that is entirely self-supported by private donations and patrons. Every performance is sold out. But, like the art museum, the opera staff work very hard to make themselves feel loved in the community. Even I have season tickets

So if I were these musicians, I’d be really happy with my salary and I would slunk my behind back home and say sorry for bringing up the topic up at all. I would ask myself what I could do so the community loved me more and donated money so I could have a higher salary Still, now that they foolishly brought it up...I would axe any tax dollars allotted and give the money to the library!

My thoughts without knowing the specifics:
Musicians demanding more money is an odd thing to contemplate. It's not like they are producing a product that is in high demand. The existence of any such an orchestra is at the will of its benefactors, and donors, not a sraight market economy.
Is the CSO piling up millions of dollars from all their proceeds that they are withholding from the musicians?

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