Welcome! The Denver Musician's Association (DMA) represents over 800 professional musicians of all styles.

Other People's Money

Lone Tree’s Pay-to-Play Orchestra in Concert, Saturday, July 23
By Pete Vriesenga

Public funding for symphony orchestras has become more and more scarce, which comes as no surprise. According to the American Symphony Orchestra League, public funding for symphony orchestras as a national average is now just 4%.

Incredibly, the Lone Tree Symphony, a pay-to-play orchestra, shattered this depressing statistic. LTSO’s 2009 reports show that approximately 80% of the orchestra’s $57,900 budget come from government sources. Much of this money became available to the LTSO after the November 2004 election when Lone Tree residents voted to participate in the SCFD Taxing District.
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NLRB Affirms AFM Jurisdiction to Bargain Over Symphonic Media

(New York, NY) A three-judge panel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has affirmed that the Musical Arts Association (MAA), which runs The Cleveland Orchestra, violated federal labor law by refusing to bargain with the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) regarding terms and conditions of employment related to electronic media productions. The NLRB rejected MAA’s argument that it had complied with the law by making media proposals to AFM Local 4 (the Federation’s affiliated local in Cleveland). The NLRB affirmed Administrative Law Judge Eric M. Fine’s earlier finding that having signed media agreements with the Federation for many years, MAA was not free to shift media negotiations to a local basis.

Kolacny Music - Over 80 years of service to our community

By Pete Vriesenga

Richard Kolacny, who joined the DMA in 1947, recently called the office to pay his annual dues. I was privileged to take his call and personally thanked him for 64 years of dedicated support for causes of professional musicians.

As president of Kolacny Music, a family-owned business since 1930, Richard Kolacny’s dedicated support to our local community shines bigger than life. I join many thousands of music professionals in thanking the Kolacny family for more than 80 years of service to our community. How many lifetime friendships and associations have been forged over this time, and how do we put a price on that?
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