New York Philharmonic Players Reach Deal Raising Base Pay to $205,000

The New York Philharmonic, the oldest orchestra in America, has long been one of the most revered. But in recent years, its musicians have been paid significantly less than their peers in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

That will soon change. Under a new labor contract announced on Thursday, the Philharmonic's musicians will get a raise of 30 percent over the next three years, bringing the base salary to $205,000. They will be among the highest paid orchestra musicians in the country.

"It's transformative," said Colin Williams, the associate principal trombone, who helped lead the negotiations. "It speaks to the commitment from the Philharmonic's leadership to making sure this place is really a destination orchestra."

The Philharmonic's leaders praised the agreement, which the ensemble's roughly 100 musicians are expected to ratify on Friday, when their existing contract expires.

"This is a restorative settlement that brings our musicians to the level of their peer orchestras," Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic's interim leader, said in an interview.

Included in the agreement are changes meant to make the hiring process fairer and more transparent, including provisions that will require musicians to play from behind a screen in the final rounds of auditions. (A screen has been optional in the final round.)

The deal comes as the Philharmonic faces challenges at the start of its 2024-25 season. The orchestra lacks a permanent president and chief executive, after the sudden resignation in July of its leader, Gary Ginstling . An investigation into sexual harassment and misconduct at the Philharmonic has dragged on. And the ensemble, which is awaiting the arrival in 2026 of the star conductor Gustavo Dudamel , has no full-time music director this season or next.

The contract is the first that the Philharmonic has negotiated since the coronavirus pandemic, which put financial strains on the ensemble. While the Philharmonic, with an endowment of about $237 million and a budget of about $90 million, has largely bounced back since then, it faces rising costs and a cash deficit of about $8 million.

The Philharmonic said it would pay for the wage increases, which will cost several million dollars over the next few seasons, through fund-raising and other means. The orchestra said it was in the early phases of a money-raising drive called the Dudamel Visionary Fund Campaign, led by the chairs of the Philharmonic's board, Peter W. May and Oscar L. Tang. Some of those funds will be used to help pay musicians' salaries; the Philharmonic declined to say how much it had raised.

Borda said she was confident that the Philharmonic could afford the wage increases. Under the deal, the musicians will receive a 15 percent raise this season; a 7.5 percent raise in the 2025-26 season; and a 7.5 percent in the 2026-27 season.

"The board would not have approved this settlement," Borda said, "unless they had full confidence that there were financial and fund-raising goals they could and should meet."

The contract will also bring changes to the Philharmonic's highly competitive hiring process. American orchestras, including the Philharmonic, have been criticized in recent years for a striking dearth of Black and Latino players.

As part of the deal, the Philharmonic agreed to re-examine its audition process with the help of the Black Orchestral Network , Sphinx Organization and the National Alliance for Audition Support . Those groups have pushed for greater diversity in classical music .

The orchestra will also put in place protocols to ensure that votes on auditions and tenure are done by secret ballot to "to eliminate any possibility of undue influence by individual committee members," according to the agreement. Candidates for tenure will be paired with mentors in the orchestra to help them through the process.

Since the start of talks in April, salaries remained the musicians' priority. Currently, the base salary for the New York players was $153,504; orchestras in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles have secured increases that will bring their base salaries to about $200,000 over the next several years.