Houston Symphony Musicians Get a Raise, New Contract

On April 17, the Houston Symphony agreed to a new contract with its musicians. The symphony’s musicians will get a 2.85 percent annual raise under terms of the four-year deal, which will take their annual salary from $86,840 today to $97,240 during the 2017-18 season, the symphony said. The current contract was scheduled to expire Oct. 4. The Houston Symphony has 87 professional musicians, one of the largest performing arts organizations in Houston.

So where does that rank in terms of big-city orchestras? “We’re the 14th highest-paid orchestra,” said Mark Hanson, executive director and CEO of the orchestra in America’s fourth-largest city. “That’s an improvement from No. 16 several years ago.”
Hanson said that in terms both artistic and monetary, the top U.S. orchestras are “the big five:" The Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
“They are in a class by themselves,” Hanson said.

Indeed, the Chicago Symphony ratified a new contract in 2012 that will pay every musician no less than about $148,000.
But not every orchestra musician is seeing their pay go up. The Minnesota Orchestra, comparable to Houston, recently ratified a three-year deal that cuts salaries and benefits by about 15 percent. As such, the average salary for a flutist on the frozen tundra will drop to $118,000 from $135,000, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.