So, you’ve won an audition. Do you negotiate your salary?

I only negotiated moving expenses after winning an audition. I did not think I had enough leverage to negotiate a higher salary/better PTO coming into the job as it was for a section position and my last position was lower paying.

I would be interested to hear if any section players have negotiated their contracts after receiving tenure. Does receiving tenure give you any negotiating leverage as the orchestra has decided it would like to keep you around?

This is an important topic and I think most people coming into their first job (either from school or from the freelance world) need to know more about this.

First you have to understand that the union-negotiated CBA in your new job exists to provide decent working conditions and a MINIMUM amount of compensation for the players. The union CBA is there to “raise the floor” of what the orchestra is paid - it does not dictate what the “ceiling” of salaries and benefits can be. So you do not have to just accept what the CBA minimum salary is, you have the right to negotiate just like in any other job. And someone else already said, the time between your audition win and actually starting the new job is your best chance of negotiating your contract. Another good time to negotiate is if you win a job in a different ensemble, and you can ask your current employer to improve your personal contract in order to keep you.

That being said, you have to understand your own position (what leverage you may or may not have) as well as what the culture and status quo at the given orchestra happens to be. For example if you won a section string position, you can’t expect to make the same or more as a titled player. If you play a wind/brass/percussion instrument, and you have doublings/secondary instruments as part of your position, you should look at what the contract says about doubling compensation and decide if that sounds fair, or if you think it could be better.

If you’re a titled player, especially a principal, you will naturally have more leverage because A) you are in a prominent leadership position and B) you will be in the highest pay scale of your CBA, meaning there is no defined upper limit to your title’s pay scale. In fact, I know in some orchestras, if you were to accept the base overscale as a new principal, you’d be vastly underpaid since all the other principals have negotiated much higher overscale than what’s in the contract. It can be tricky to find this out, as it requires people disclosing their personal salaries to you / each other, but if you know someone in the ensemble and get connected to their committee chair or a union steward, someone will hopefully be square with you about what the lay of the land is.

Aside from compensation, many other items are negotiable too - moving expenses are a big one that’s already been mentioned. If this job requires you to move to a new state/city, you should get some quotes for how much that will cost and put together an estimate for what you’ll need to cover your moving expenses. PTO and title relief are also negotiable - remember the CBA is just setting minimums for these things. If you’re a titled player, you can also try asking for other forms of compensation such as higher rates for solos/concertos, mandate that the group feature you as a soloist every so often, commission a new concerto on your behalf or help you purchase a new better quality instrument.

This is a big topic, so those are just a few ideas. But on the whole, I think we as musicians too often are just grateful to take whatever offer we get and never think to try pushing for improved conditions and pay beyond the minimums.

I honestly wasn't aware that negotiating the contract was an option. Is this standard practice for a section player in an ICSOM orchestra? I was under the impression that negotiation is typically done by the union representing musicians but I could be wrong!

I didn't negotiate negotiate anything when I accepted my first tenure-track position, but there also wasn't anything that stood out to me as lacking in the CBA. (Section position in an ICSOM orchestra, past season's salary was posted on the audition announcement). Thinking back to when I signed my contract, I don't actually know if I would have been comfortable negotiating anything because everything seemed reasonable and I wanted to make myself easy to work with since I would be up for tenure review.

Every orchestra is different, but I think your strongest bargaining position is right when you win the job. Consult the orchestra's CBA for things like overscale (for title chairs), paid time off, relief weeks, etc, then decide what you'd like to negotiate on. Some orchestras have really good PTO and others don't (mine isn't great, so I negotiated for more). Often you can negotiate moving expenses as well if you're picking up and moving your life across the country.

Great question! Definitely interested to hear others' thoughts on this.