mwm@ea.UUCP (10/04/84)
Reprinted (without permission) from an interview with Frank Zappa ("Modern
Music is a Sick Puppy") in Digital Audio, Oct. 1984
I went to several of the rehearsals and noticed there was a
problem with their harpist. In my piece there is a situation
where the harp has to play a fairly difficult melody with
the oboe. She couldn't do it, so I just told the conductor
to leaver her out.
Then I noticed there was a composer named Nancy Chance who
had written a piece that had massive harp parts in it. The
harpist couldn't play those parts at all, and the harp is
the predominant thing in her piece, so I talked with the
conductor, and the situation was explained to me this way:
This woman has {\i lifetime tenure} in the orchestra. You
can't even pay her to stay home. The union in Columbus
threatens to shut everybody down if you mess with their harp
player. There are other competent harpists in town, but the
union refuses to let the orchestra hire anybody other than
this woman.
So who's the loser? The composer loses {\i big.} The
audience loses because they don't get to hear what the piece
is really about.
As usual, art imitates life.
<mike