The concentration of wealth and the orchestra

Title: The Plight of the White-Tie Worker
Source: NY Times
Date: July 4, 2004

It is the same pattern seen by workers in every corner of America:

In the musicians' locker rooms, frustration is building as the salaries of orchestra executives and conductors skyrocket, while the players' salaries stagnate.

The frustration is driven by this disparity:

In 2003, the most recent year for which tax documents are available to the public, the [New York Philharmonic] orchestra paid its music director, Lorin Maazel, $2.28 million for 14 weeks with the orchestra and an annual tour.

Meanwhile:

over the last decade, as pay increases for symphony leaders have soared, the players' annual raises dropped from 3.9 percent in 1993 to 1.7 percent in 2003

Executive pay skyrockets while worker pay stagnates. In this case, worker pay is actually declining, since it is not even keeping up with inflation. It is a classic formula for concentrating wealth. Every segment of society is seeing this same trend.