The disclosure that the musical director of the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra earns more than the state governor and the Mexican president has come as a shock to many music enthusiasts who have been led to believe the state-run outfit was experiencing hard financial times.
With a monthly salary of 235,000 pesos (just over $US12,000), Canadian Marco Parisotto is the best paid musical director in Mexico – by a long, long way.
Perversely, the orchestra’s musicians are among the worst.
And, according to reports in Spanish-language daily Mural, Parisotto gets his astronomical sum tax free. This taxable sum – around 75,000 pesos – is absorbed by the orchestra’s administration.
Most directors of Mexico’s leading orchestras earn between 75,000 and 100,000 pesos a month. Carlos Prieto of the Sinfonica Nacional is the closest to Parisotto, with a salary of 133,000 pesos.
In addition, Parisotto has allegedly been living free of charge in a Guadalajara hotel since he was hired two years ago.
In light of the revelations, Kehila Abigail Ku Escalante, president of the culture committee in the Jalisco Congress, demanded that Culture Secretary Myriam Vachez provide state legislators with a full explanation of the orchestra’s current financial situation, as well as labor issues that have plagued the musical outfit over the past year.
Musicians interviewed by Mural this week commented that Parisotto’s salary was “way out of proportion” with the current economic reality in Mexico.