Musicians On Strike! New York Union Demands A Contract | Andy Blanco | TMR

Percussionist with the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and a member of the American Federation of Musicians Union Local 802, Andy Blanco, joins the program to discuss his union's ongoing strike in New York. Over 100 musicians and union supporters protested in front of Carnegie Hall on Feb. 20 demanding a fair contract for the DCINY Orchestra, represented by AFM Local 802.

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Joining me Andy Blanco is a percussionist with the distinguished Concerts Orchestra and a member of the American Federation of Musicians Union Local 802. Andy is welcome to the program. This is exciting because you are literally in a practice space. I can hear your percussionist. I can hear the drums in the background. You're not playing them obviously during the interview. But what do you play, do you mean do you play the big drums or like what do you play? Yeah as a percussionist we're required to play anything in the percussion family. And that goes from instruments as small as the triangle to as large as the timpani in the bass drum. Okay, now what Orchestra do you play in and where does it usually do its work in what context? So distinguished concerts artists or sorry distinguished concerts International New York DCINY they are a concert promoter and producer that operates in and out of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. They're a promoter that sells a professional Concert Experience to amateur choirs and amateur singers. and so since 2009 they've been selling these experiences to tourists and amateur musicians and they've been hiring professional musicians to accompany these choirs. And in 2019 the musicians decided that they wanted to have a contract we had been performing for over 10 years without a contract and we unionized in a highly successful organizing campaign. And unfortunately, since 2019 we've been trying to negotiate a fair deal with DCINY and we have yet to reach an agreement. All right and so just to be clear my daughter did her chorus performance at Carnegie Hall this year. She had a performance there. unfortunately or I guess it was last year I mean I had COVID at the time. So I missed it. But would that have been something like and then you guys do you're the orchestra is that what's happening there?