The musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra ratified a new three-year contract on Friday 18 September. The Board of Trustees ratified it on Saturday the 19th. It runs from September 2026 to September 2029.
The joint announcement from the orchestra's association and the Chicago Federation of Musicians sets out the pay terms in one sentence: base compensation "will increase by 4% in the first two years and 4.5% in the final year of the three-year agreement."
Add those up and you get 12.5 per cent.
It is the wrong figure, and the right one is better.
Four, four and four and a half is not twelve and a half
Pay rises compound. Each one applies to a base the previous rise has already raised, so they multiply rather than add.
| Year | Rise | Base, indexed to 100 |
|---|---|---|
| Start | 100.00 | |
| One | 4 per cent | 104.00 |
| Two | 4 per cent | 108.16 |
| Three | 4.5 per cent | 113.03 |
By the third year a musician's base is 13.03 per cent above where it started, not 12.5. The gap is 0.53 of a percentage point, and it exists because the 4.5 per cent in the final year lands on a base that has already grown by 8.16.
It is a small difference and it is real money, and it is in the players' favour. Anyone reporting this contract as a twelve-and-a-half per cent deal is understating what the negotiating committee actually brought back.
Put it in money rather than index points. On a base of $100,000, a round number chosen because it makes the arithmetic legible and not a figure for any Chicago player, the simple reading gives $112,500 in the third year and the compounded one gives $113,027. The gap is $527 a year. It also does not stop when the contract does, because the higher base is the number the next negotiation starts from.
The rest of the terms
Pay is not the whole of it, and two other clauses are worth recording.
All insurance and retirement benefits are retained. On top of that, the association's contribution to each musician's defined contribution retirement account rises by 0.25 per cent from the second year, in the release's own wording. The release gives the size of the increase but not the rate it increases from, so what a Chicago musician's retirement contribution will actually be cannot be stated here.
The release is also candid that this went both ways. It records changes that "improve working conditions for the musicians, enable the expansion of media activities and create efficiencies and cost reductions, including in healthcare, for the CSOA." Cost reductions in healthcare, in an American contract, is not a phrase that means nothing. What it means here is not specified.
The same week, the opposite direction
This is why the Chicago number is worth the trouble of getting right.
San Francisco Opera's musicians struck on 12 September 2026 and reached a tentative agreement on 17 September, five days later. What they struck over, by their own account, was a sequence of proposals: a 26 per cent pay cut, then 20 per cent, then a five-year wage freeze that on their own arithmetic amounted to roughly the same 20 per cent in real terms. The company's own release of 12 September, the night of the strike, gave its account of its offer at that point: it said it had "proposed a multi-year contract that phases in structural change at the same time as increasing wage rates, such that the Musicians' seasonal compensation does not reduce during the term."
| Same week, two American orchestras | |
|---|---|
| Chicago Symphony, ratified | +13.03 per cent compounded over three years |
| San Francisco Opera, the offer that caused a strike | about −20 per cent in real terms, on the musicians' arithmetic |
San Francisco Opera says it "faces a difficult economic situation"; Chicago's association reported an operating deficit of $1.4 million for the year to 30 June 2025. Both settled within six days of each other. One settled on a rise of thirteen per cent. The other settled after its musicians struck on the season's opening night, 12 September, on pay terms neither side had published when Cadenza checked the orchestra's site, the company's economics page and the joint statement of 17 September on 24 September 2026.
Cadenza is not going to pretend to know why two American orchestras reached such different places. Chicago is a symphony orchestra; San Francisco Opera is a seasonal opera company whose public filing for the year to 31 July 2025 shows expenses exceeding revenue by $6.3 million. They are different businesses. But Cadenza thinks the contrast is worth more to an orchestral musician than either settlement alone, and that it gets lost when each settlement is reported only in its own city.
The seven musicians on the committee
Throughout the talks, the release says, the musicians' negotiating committee was represented by the Chicago Federation of Musicians Local 10-208, its president BJ Levy and vice president John Floeter, and legal counsel Robert Bloch.
The release names the CSO's negotiating committee in full. Neither Slippedisc's reprint of the release on 19 September nor the Chicago Classical Review's report of 22 September lists it, so here it is:
- William Buchman, Assistant Principal Bassoon, Chair of the Orchestra Members' Committee
- Cynthia Yeh, Principal Percussion, Vice-Chair
- Robert Kassinger, Bass
- Ken Olsen, Assistant Principal Cello
- Carol Keller, Librarian
- Dan Katz, Cello
- Andrew Sommer, Bass
Buchman's statement is the least triumphal in the release and the most worth reading. "While this settlement required difficult compromises on both sides, it establishes a stable foundation that protects our musicians' financial security and keeps live symphonic music on the Symphony Center stage," he said. "It ensures we can maintain our legacy of exceptional artistry in a time of uncertainty. Ultimately, this contract represents a shared investment in the long-term viability of our ensemble, keeping our musicians doing the work they love."
How close it came
The timeline in the release is worth setting out, because it shows how near this got to the edge.
| Negotiations opened | May 2026 |
| Talks continued through | 13 September |
| Tentative agreement reached | the evening of 13 September, before a midnight expiry |
| Musicians ratified | Friday 18 September |
| Board ratified | Saturday 19 September |
A tentative deal on the evening the old contract was due to expire at midnight. Four months of talking, settled in the last few hours available.
For comparison, San Francisco Opera's contract expired on 31 July and its musicians were still without one when they struck on 12 September. Chicago made its deadline. San Francisco was six weeks past its deadline when its musicians struck, and reached a tentative agreement on 17 September, 48 days after expiry.
What management said
The association's president, Jeff Alexander, called it "a pivotal moment for the CSOA and the musicians of the CSO," and spoke of "the spirit of cooperation and partnership sustained throughout these negotiations." The board chair, Mary Louise Gorno, framed it as an agreement "that ensures financial sustainability while preserving our standard of artistic excellence."
BJ Levy, president of the Chicago Federation of Musicians Local 10-208, honoured the musicians "for their distinguished artistry and unwavering dedication," and, notably, recognised "management's commitment to preserving this vital cultural institution." Union presidents do not always say that.
It began as a contract set to expire at midnight on 13 September 2026
Everything here began as a date in a document, and the whole of it was settled in the four months before that date arrived.
Cadenza carries auditions and vacancies with open deadlines, free to musicians, on its jobs board and competitions on its competitions board. It has spent September 2026 counting what orchestras actually pay, including a New York principal chair whose base scale the orchestra publishes.
If you go. The musicians' agreement, ratified on 18 and 19 September 2026, runs through September 2029, so the 2026/27 season at Chicago Symphony Center falls under a ratified contract. Dates are on the orchestra's own site, chicagosymphony.org.
The question is for whoever settles next. Chicago published its percentages and its timeline on the day the board ratified, and anyone can now check the arithmetic, including the part that flatters the musicians. San Francisco has settled, and when Cadenza checked on 24 September 2026, neither the orchestra's site, the company's economics page nor the joint statement of 17 September said what its musicians will be paid. Which of those two is the harder thing to do, and which one builds more trust?
Sources: the joint press release of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and the Chicago Federation of Musicians Local 10-208, dated 19 September 2026 and published as a PDF on the orchestra's own site, read in full. It is the source for the three-year term of September 2026 to September 2029, the rises of 4 per cent in the first two years and 4.5 per cent in the final year, the retention of insurance and retirement benefits, the 0.25 per cent increase in the association's defined contribution from year two, the language about working conditions, media activities and healthcare cost reductions, the full negotiating-committee membership and who represented it, the timeline from May 2026 to the ratifications on 18 and 19 September, and every quotation from Mary Louise Gorno, Jeff Alexander, William Buchman and BJ Levy.
The compounded figure of 13.03 per cent is Cadenza's arithmetic: 1.04 × 1.04 × 1.045 = 1.1303. The sequence of San Francisco Opera proposals, as the musicians describe it, and the tentative agreement of 17 September are from the orchestra's own negotiations page. The $6.3 million gap between revenue and expenses is from San Francisco Opera Association's return for the year to 31 July 2025, as published in ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer: total revenue $82,803,363 against total expenses $89,075,957. San Francisco Opera's own description of its position and of its offer is from its press release of 12 September 2026, which also dates the strike to that season-opening night. What San Francisco has published about pay was checked on 24 September 2026 on the orchestra's site, which carries the joint statement of 17 September, and on the company's economics page. Chicago's operating deficit of $1.4 million is from the association's release of 29 October 2025 on its results for the year to 30 June 2025. The two other reports of the Chicago agreement are Slippedisc's of 19 September and the Chicago Classical Review's of 22 September.
Correction, 24 September 2026: an earlier version of this article dated the musicians' ratification in its headline to 19 September, the day before publication; the musicians ratified on Friday 18 September and the board on 19 September. It said the deal was being repeated as twelve and a half per cent; the one earlier report Cadenza could read, Slippedisc's of 19 September, called it a "4% pay deal"; the Chicago Classical Review totalled the rises as 12.5 per cent on 22 September, and 12.5 is now given only as the simple sum of the three rises. It said San Francisco Opera's most recent public filing showed expenses exceeding revenue by $13.1 million; that was the year to 31 July 2023, and the most recent return, for the year to 31 July 2025, shows $6.3 million. It stated as fact that San Francisco's management proposed pay cuts of 26 and then 20 per cent; those are the musicians' own figures, as is their estimate that a five-year wage freeze amounts to roughly 20 per cent in real terms, and all three are now attributed to them. It also said Chicago has a 52-week season; Cadenza could not support that from a current source, and it has been removed. It said both institutions describe themselves as facing financial pressure; San Francisco Opera does, while Chicago's association reported a $1.4 million operating deficit for the year to 30 June 2025, which is what the piece now says. It said San Francisco missed its deadline by six weeks; that was the gap to the strike, and the tentative agreement came on 17 September, 48 days after the contract expired. The cover caption named a Marcus Roberts Trio; the photograph's file page names pianist Marcus Roberts, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Roland Guerin. On 25 September 2026 the excerpt, which had said San Francisco Opera's musicians struck over a proposal that would have taken about 20 per cent off them, was changed to say that the figure is in real terms: it is the musicians' own estimate of what a five-year wage freeze amounts to once inflation is counted.
Cover photograph: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra on stage at Symphony Center, photographed in 2005 when pianist Marcus Roberts, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Roland Guerin performed Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the orchestra. Jordan Fischer, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Comments
Sign in to join the discussion.