You PAY Musicians?

Many people greet me with this statement: You mean you PAY musicians? I have to be honest, I am amazed at their amazement!

Yes, we do pay our musicians. I strongly advocate for musicians to be paid. I have negotiated many gigs for musicians. Sometimes my request for a payment are met with gasps. And that is the end of the negotiation. That is fine.

Having said that, the SCSO cannot pay musicians what they truly deserve, but our small stipend does cover some costs, ok, maybe only pizza and some gas but it is something! I would love a donor to give me $100,000 and say, 'Spend this on the musicians.'

I feel strongly about this issue because so many people expect me to book musicians for them for free or for a pittance. Onetime someone wanted the whole orchestra to perform at an event, 'They will play for free because they just love to play, right?' My question back was, 'will your computer person fix your computer for free?' Needless to say, that did not work out.

It takes a long time to master an instrument. Trust me, I have tried. It takes hours of practice, no matter how long you have played. Many of our principal musicians still take classes and lessons in order to get better. None of that is free. So expecting musicians to play for free or for nearly nothing is, my dear community, just plain rude.

AND I, Sandy Nadeau, have always advocated that students get paid for their skills as well. Why? We want to train them to be professionals, we want them to behave as professionals and they have spent many hours learning to master a skill. Sometimes I have had to debate this issue rather vehemently. Last year the student musicians who performed "Ocean" with the orchestra were paid just as much as everyone else. Why? Because the expectations were the same and what better way to train someone than to have high expectations. I won that round.

Many time musicians do donate their time and skill to events for the orchestra. Recently, several musicians donated time at the St. Cloud Public Library to introduce the instruments of the orchestra to very young children. For this, I am so grateful. The musicians of the SCSO understand the big picture. They know that getting kids to classical music early is essential and sometimes we just don't have the budget to pay them for this. (Did I tell you they are the best musicians on earth!--In my humble opinion.)

I hope they also know that I am angry when people undercut them and try not to pay at all. I would challenge those who do, to take a personal inventory and ask themselves, 'do I share my skills, my time, my talents for free?'