An interesting piece of intelligence surfaced last weekend when musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra reached agreement on a three-year contract with the Orchestral Association.
According to IRS tax records, the highest paid employee of the orchestra, other than officers, directors and trustees, is music director Daniel Barenboim, who received $712,638 in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1993, the most current year such data is publicly available.
The next four highest-paid employees are CSO music director laureate Georg Solti, $229,000; co-concertmasters Samuel Magad, $160,414, and Ruben D’Artagnan Gonzalez, $150,864; and principal horn Dale Clevenger, $140,197. The annual salary of Henry Fogel, executive director and executive vice president of the association, is $241,225.
Under terms of the musicians’ new contract, their weekly base pay will rise to $1,400 a week, or $72,800 annually, in the first year of the contract.
– The Ravinia Festival reported record average attendance per event and record average revenue for its 1994 season. These figures were up 12 and 14 percent, respectively, over Ravinia’s previous banner year, 1991.
Total box office receipts exceeded $6 million, and paid admissions topped 450,000 for the second time in the festival’s 59-year history. The largest crowd of the season was tallied for the July 31 Chicago Symphony pops concert, with John Williams conducting. The figures represent 85 events, presented over a 10-week season beginning June 16 and ending Aug. 28.
– Symphony of the Shores, where frisky crossover fare happily coexists with more sobersided classics, has announced three programs for its 1994-95 season at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Evanston. All programs will be under the baton of music director Steven Martyn Zike.
The season begins Oct. 23 with “Music of the Americas,” featuring a new work by composer-in-residence Doug Lofstrom, Copland’s “Old American Songs” (Winifred Faix Brown and Stephen Morscheck, soloists) and works by Michael Torke, Glen Buhr and Alberto Ginastera.
The symphony’s concert Feb. 19 will spotlight folk and classical works performed by Irish musicians. June 4 will bring a salute to Australian music and musicians, including the world premiere of Adam Plack’s “Natural Symphony, From Dawn to Dusk,” which incorporates the didgeridoo, an aboriginal instrument. Call 708-869-3133 for ticket information.
– This is the weekend local record collectors have been waiting for, the opening of the 17th annual Old Orchard Mammoth Music & Record Mart, which begins Thursday and runs through Oct. 2 at the Old Orchard Center, Golf Road and Skokie Boulevard, Skokie. All proceeds benefit the Les Turner ALS Foundation for patient services and research into ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The 11-day sale includes more than 400,000 donated new and used musical items at bargain prices, including LPs, 45s, 78s, singles, compact discs, cassette tapes, stereo and video components, sheet and book music, and musical instruments. Admission is free except opening day ($5 donation) and Oct. 2 ($2 donation). Last year’s mart raised a record $346,000.
– A Metropolitan Opera telecast of Puccini’s “Tosca,” starring Hildegard Behrens and Placido Domingo, will open the Texaco Performing Arts Showcase on the Bravo cable network at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
