13 Top Questions

The Arizona Opera Orchestra is comprised of musicians who earned their position through a rigorous audition process. Auditions are blind, held behind a screen to guarantee anonymity.

The majority of orchestra members reside in Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, but some travel from as far as New York, California, Kansas, New Mexico, and Vermont to be members of this orchestra. The orchestra has an excellent reputation that musicians even from afar, wish to be a part of.

No. The Arizona Opera began in Tucson in 1971. During the tenure of Arizona Opera’s former Executive Director David Speers, the Arizona Opera made an artistic commitment to the cultural life of Phoenix and Tucson by establishing a dedicated orchestra for the Arizona Opera.As with other major metropolitan areas, in both Phoenix and Tucson there are separate and dedicated orchestras for each musical genre: symphonic music and opera.

As the fifth largest city in the country, Phoenix (as well as Tucson) remains in the company of cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and Los Angeles which all have independent, dedicated orchestras for both opera and symphonic music.

The Arizona Opera Orchestra’s musicians have been playing their instruments for an average of 35 years, a total of more than 1500 years collectively!

They have been performing as members of the Arizona Opera Orchestra for an average of more than 10 years per musician, collectively for more than 400 years! That’s dedication.

Each member of the orchestra must maintain their performance abilities through regular daily practice on their instrument. This involves practicing technique as well as learning repertoire.Each musician receives music 2 weeks prior to the start of rehearsals for a production and is expected to have his or her part prepared for the first rehearsal. Rehearsals are spent fine-tuning ensemble skills with a conductor and working on coordination between instrumentalists and vocalists.

In addition to practice, preparation includes hours of maintenance (cleaning, making reeds, etc) necessary for instruments to function properly.

A typical production for the Arizona Opera involves five days of rehearsals and performances in Tucson and five in Phoenix. We receive a nominal travel stipend for time spent on the road as well as per diem for food when away from our city of residence.

Our dedication to the Arizona Opera involves many miles and a lot of time on the road.

No. The Arizona Opera is comprised of musicians who earn a living in various ways in addition to their work with the Arizona Opera Orchestra. Most of the musicians perform with a multitude of musical ensembles throughout Arizona.

The Arizona Opera Orchestra’s members play regularly with the Phoenix Symphony, Tucson Symphony and Flagstaff Symphony in addition to virtually every regional orchestra in the state.

In the 2006-2007 season, a section member of the orchestra who played every service in the entire season earned $6,332.80. More than 25% of the musicians were not required for all of the Arizona Opera’s productions, so made significantly less.

We are a per-service orchestra. That is, we are paid a fee for each service (rehearsal or performance) we play. We receive no health insurance, no pension, no unemployment, and no instrument insurance.

Other opera orchestras pay musicians much higher wages compared to their respective cities’ cost of living indexes for a comparable 3-hour service. The national average for the cost of living index is 100, figures are based on a percentage of the national average.

*Cleveland and Michigan Opera services also include a 10% pension contribution

In order to make a living, the Arizona Opera Orchestra’s musicians supplement their income through a variety of means. Many of the Opera Orchestra’s musicians teach music in addition to performing. The members of our orchestra teach upwards of 250 private music students each week.

Our musicians are on faculty at Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, Kansas State University, Iowa State University, Dartmouth, and New Mexico Highlands University. They teach at Chandler-Gilbert, Estrella, Glendale, Phoenix, Pima, and Mesa Community Colleges as well as in the Tempe, Tucson and Mesa Unified School Districts.

The Arizona Opera Orchestra’s musicians are educating more than 1500 students in universities, community colleges, public and private schools.

The musicians of the Arizona Opera Orchestra have an impressive resume. They have performed in more than 37 countries around the world. They have performed with more than 80 of the best symphony orchestras in the country, including Philadelphia, Nashville, Jacksonville, New Mexico and Rochester.

They have also performed with dozens of the highest caliber opera and ballet orchestras as well, including the San Francisco Opera, Philadelphia Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera and Ballet and Santa Fe Opera, to name just a few.

The Arizona Opera Orchestra’s members have also graced the stage with icons like

• Barry Manilow
• Ray Charles
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Benny Goodman
• Josh Groban
• John Tesh
• Stevie Wonder

…and countless others. In addition to performing in the pit as members of the Arizona Opera Orchestra, its musicians have also performed in the pit for hosts of national touring broadway productions such as The Lion King, Wicked, Beauty and the Beast, The Producers, West Side Story and even for the Radio City Rockettes.

The Arizona Opera Orchestra Orchestra’s musicians hold degrees from some of the finest universities and music conservatories in the nation, including:

• Arizona State University
• University of Arizona
• Northern Arizona University
• Northwestern
• Indiana University
• Manhattan School of Music
• Cincinnati Conservatory
• Eastman School of Music
• Oberlin Conservatory

The Arizona Opera Orchestra is full of intelligent and talented musicians!

• 95% of the orchestra members have a college degree
• 84% of the orchestra members have more than one college degree
• 1/3 of the orchestra members have a doctoral degree

The musicians of the Arizona Opera Orchestra spend time enjoying a myriad of hobbies and volunteer work in addition to their musical pursuits. The most popular hobbies among the orchestra’s musicians are hiking, cooking, reading, home improvement, traveling and gardening. Some of the musicians also enjoy kayaking, creating stained glass, motorcycles, jewelry making, surfing and yoga as well.

The musicians donate close to 150 hours per week to volunteer work in school PTAs, committees and boards in organizations around the community, church and religious activities, counseling, anti-violence organizations, animal rescue, girl scouts, political organizations, children’s sports leagues and by offering musical instruction to underprivileged children.

Cat people! Cats outnumber dogs as pets of our musicians by a tally of 36 to 22, with 2 turtles, 2 rabbits, a bird and a bevy of fish rounding out the collection!