Local 802 and AFM Local 47 (Los Angeles) recently teamed up to fight the use of the virtual orchestra machine at the Nederlander’s Pantages Theatre in L.A.

At the center of the fight is Realtime Music Solutions, the company that provided Broadway producers with the machine brought in to replace all live music on Broadway during the 2003 Broadway musicians’ strike, and whose efforts to attack live music have since increased throughout the U.S. and beyond.

Today, Locals 802 and 47 are joining forces to fight the proliferation of computerized machines in orchestra pits across America.

We stand together to protect not only the jobs of musicians, but the artistic integrity of live musical performance and the enjoyment of every theatregoer around the nation.

A growing threat to all live music, the virtual orchestra machine is not a musical instrument.

It is a machine designed to eliminate live music.

It is a tool of corporate interests that will cheapen the theatre experience for millions of Americans. A tool that corporate interests are now attempting to legitimize by claiming it to be the very thing it was designed to destroy — live music.

The battle over the virtual orchestra machine in New York and Los Angeles continues a national fight over the future of live music.

This is a fight against unscrupulous producers who elevate profits over patrons, and the outcome will have repercussions for every musician and every theatregoer.

I have asked Local 47’s permission to reprint their front-page coverage on our alliance against the machine (click here for article “V.O. Machine Stands Trial in L.A.”).