NY Philharmonic's David Geffen Hall
(c) Remy Franck
The New York Philharmonic has announced that its musicians have agreed to a four-year contract that includes salary cuts of 25 percent of their base pay through August 2023. Pay will then gradually increase until the contract ends in September 2024, though at that point the players will still be paid less than they were before the coronavirus pandemic struck. The cuts will amount to more than $20 million in musicians’ wages over the course of the contract, the players’ negotiating committee said in a press release.
The Philharmonic projects that the cancellation of its 2020-21 season will result in $21 million of lost ticket revenue, on top of $10 million lost in its previous season this spring.
The new contract is a continuation of the short-term pay reductions that the Philharmonic’s musicians agreed to earlier in the pandemic. The base pay of a NY Phil musician before the cuts was more than $150.000 per year.
