“Naples Philharmonic musicians and management have reached an unprecedented five-year contract agreement that will increase musicians’ base pay by 18 percent over that period and bring in at least two more musicians,” writes Harriet Howard Heithaus in Thursday’s (1/19) Naples Daily News (Florida). “That will bring the number of musicians to 51, according to Kathleen van Bergen, CEO and president of Artis—Naples, the institution that is home to the orchestra…. The contract increases musician base pay from $52,260 this season to $63,360 in 2021-22…. Principal timpanist John Evans and violinist Marlena Chow co-chaired negotiations for the musicians. Evans called the contract, which provides for base salary increases of 3 percent, 5 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent for the last two years, ‘pretty substantial.’ … The contract, as in the past, is a 39 weeks-per-year agreement, and the number of concerts performed is expected to remain the same. The new agreement also includes flexibility for streaming or video recording and broadcasting concerts [and] the flexibility to present more films with live orchestral accompaniment…. The Naples Philharmonic has done that with … a concert of Warner Bros. cartoons and a showing of the classic thriller ‘Psycho.’ ”
Posted January 20, 2017
Pictured: Naples Philharmonic Music Director Andrey Boreyko with concertmaster Glenn Basham (left) at Artis—Naples
