(This story has been updated with new information.)
Three months after the previous contract extension expired and hours before the first Yuletide Celebration performance of 2025, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and its musicians announced that the parties have reached a new three-year labor agreement.
Chief among the contract’s key components is a 9.6% salary increase for the musicians over three years that ends at a $74,000 minimum salary. The agreement covers the 78 musicians who are represented by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Players Association and Local 3 of the American Federation of Musicians, according to a Dec. 5 release from the symphony.
“Minimum annual salary is very important to musicians because everything relates back to it in our contract — our weekly pay; what we get paid if we do extra work, extra services; what we get paid if we play additional instruments,” said Rick Graef, co-chair of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Players Association negotiating committee. “Everything reflects back to minimum annual salary, which is the salary that the majority of the musicians in the orchestra make.”
The new contract, which will be retroactive back to Sept. 1, 2025, and extend to Aug. 31, 2028, follows the previous three-year contract that ended in 2024. The musicians and ISO at that time agreed to a one-year extension that had a minimum salary of $67,500, Graef said.
Having a labor agreement in place that will increase musicians’ salaries over time offers a steady path forward, said Graef, who is also assistant principal horn.
“The institution has had its ups and downs, but we are enthusiastic about the planning that has been done on the new five-year strategic plan. We’re excited to have our new music director (Jun Märkl) fully entrenched with the ISO community and with the ISO musicians,” Graef said. “The future is bright. With this contract, it gives us a great hope for the future.”
Symphony CEO James Johnson called the new agreement fair and forward-looking.
“It’s really recognizing the value our musicians add to our orchestra, our community,” Johnson said. “It recognizes their excellence in all they do. We are so appreciative of their willingness to support the longterm plans of the orchestra.”
Negotiating the contract took time, Johnson said, because the ISO was also working out its longterm business plans. The agreement comes on the heels of the symphony’s new strategic plan that looks ahead five years to the orchestra’s centennial in 2030.
“We’ve been working diligently on our business plans as well during this time to ensure that the musicians’ compensation was a priority in how we will operate our business going forward. It’s taken this amount of time to put those plans in place,” he said.
Other components of the labor agreement include opportunities for more collaborations at schools and with other arts institutions as well as language that clarifies audition procedures, Graef and Johnson said.
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