Would Playing Faster Increase Productivity?

Australia’s Adelaide Symphony Orchestra isn’t exactly a luxurious place to work. Its highest-paid musician is paid less than the lowest-paid member of the Sydney Symphony, and an organizational restructuring this year has cut costs and staff to the bone. And yet despite significant gains in ticket sales and private contributions, the ASO is still struggling with the deficits that have plagued Australia’s orchestras since they were privatized in 1997. Part of the problem may be that government assumptions concerning orchestras consistently expect that productivity can increase. But as one union leader points out, “it takes the same number of musicians the same amount of time to rehearse and perform as it did 200 years ago.”