On Wednesday 26 August 2026 the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced five musicians for the season that opens this month: Elmer Churampi as principal trumpet, Craig Mulcahy as principal trombone, Sam Blair as second bassoon, Gabriella McClellan in the cello section on a one-year appointment, and Chance Gompert as bass trombone. Two principal brass chairs in one release is rare enough to be the story; Musical America's headline on 3 September said the orchestra "Fills Long-vacant Spots", and the orchestra's roster, as read on 7 September, still carries an acting associate principal in both the trumpet and trombone sections beside the new names.
What makes this a ledger rather than a notice is that Atlanta says what the chairs pay. Its auditions page prints the base scale for 2026–27 to the cent, and its 2025 contract release and the players' conference's own survey of its delegates give the road ahead. We have not seen those numbers put next to the five names.
The document
| Musician | Chair | Where from, according to the biographies in the orchestra's release, condensed |
|---|---|---|
| Elmer Churampi | Principal Trumpet | From Lima; began the trumpet at four with his father, a street-band trumpeter; entered Peru's National Conservatory at 10; New England Conservatory graduate; has played with the Canadian Brass, Boston Pops, Boston Symphony and Chicago Symphony |
| Craig Mulcahy | Principal Trombone | From Denver; previously principal trombone of the National Symphony Orchestra, before that of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra; Buffalo Philharmonic and Tulsa Philharmonic |
| Sam Blair | Second Bassoon | Southern Methodist University and Yale; New World Symphony fellow; Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, contra and utility bassoon, from 2012; two one-year contracts with the National Symphony, 2022–24, as a frequent substitute; guest musician with the Malaysian Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic |
| Gabriella McClellan | Cello (one-year appointment) | Recent University of Georgia graduate; winner, 2025 Colorado College Summer Music Festival Concerto Competition; first prize, Atlanta Music Club Scholarship Competition; semi-finalist, 11th International Popper Cello Competition; prize winner, 2025 Atlanta Festival Academy Young Artist Competition |
| Chance Gompert | Bass Trombone | Previously acting bass trombone with the ASO; bass trombone of the Nashville Symphony; Indiana University; has appeared with Boston, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis and the Louisiana Philharmonic |
Jennifer Barlament, the executive director, made the announcement, and her sentence is the one the orchestra chose: "The ASO is an exceptional ensemble, attracting the best musicians from around the world. Together with their colleagues, these new musicians will help define the sound of Atlanta and help us continue to grow our impact in the community." Slipped Disc noted the same day that Mulcahy leaves Washington's National Symphony for the same title in Atlanta. Two of the five, Blair and Mulcahy, come out of the Kennedy Center's orchestras; one, Gompert, had played in Atlanta as acting bass trombone in 2023–24 before two seasons in Nashville; one, McClellan, is a recent University of Georgia graduate taking a one-year appointment, with a semi-final place at the International Popper Cello Competition and a run of festival concerto prizes behind her. That range, from a principal of the National Symphony to a one-year appointment for a recent graduate, is what a single season's hiring at a major American orchestra looks like when it is written down.
What the chairs pay
The orchestra's auditions page states, under its scheduled auditions: "The current Atlanta Symphony Orchestra CBA provides the following base scale compensation for the 2026/27 Season." The three lines are a winter season salary of "$2,418.15 per week for 42 weeks (Sep. 6, 2026– Jun. 26, 2027)", a summer season salary of "$365 per week for 11 weeks", and "Supplemental Compensation: $4,000 (total for the 2026-2027 contract year)". Added up, the base scale for 2026–27 is $109,577.30, or $109,577.
| Component, 2026–27 | $ |
|---|---|
| Winter season, 42 weeks at $2,418.15 | 101,562 |
| Summer season, 11 weeks at $365 | 4,015 |
| Supplemental compensation | 4,000 |
| Base scale, one musician | 109,577 |
| Five new chairs at base scale, 5 × $109,577.30 | 547,887 |
Two cautions sit on that table. Base scale is the floor: principals are normally paid above it under individual overscale agreements, which orchestras do not publish, so $547,887 is what the five chairs cost at minimum, not what they cost. And the number is for a full year; the page says all payments "will be prorated based on the musician's start date".
The contract behind the scale was announced by the orchestra on 23 September 2025: a three-year agreement with AFM Local 148-462 carrying "wage increases of 15% over three years", "the addition of two positions to the orchestra, growing the complement to 90 musicians in year three", the preservation of existing health insurance, and "a comprehensive overhaul of our audition and tenure review procedures". The musicians' side of the story is in The State of ICSOM 2026, the delegates' report published in June by the players' conference: "In the fall of 2025 the musicians began a three-year contract that will bring the base salary to $115,000 in the third year." The same report says the orchestra "is headed for a twelfth straight year of budget surplus", that audiences "have continued to average around 90% of capacity", and that Nathalie Stutzmann, then finishing her fourth season as music director, "was recently renewed for three more seasons". From $109,577 this season to $115,000 in 2027–28 is a rise of about five per cent, the last of the three steps that make up the contract's 15 per cent, on the assumption that the players' figure counts the same three components; the first two steps are not published.
The auditions that produced them, and the ones to come
Each of the five chairs was, before it was filled, a notice on the same page. The page now lists what comes next, and it is a full season's calendar.
| Audition | Rounds and dates | Starts |
|---|---|---|
| One-year section first and/or second violin, non-tenure-track, multiple positions | All rounds on one day, Sunday 13 September 2026 | No later than 3 November 2026; contract to 11 September 2027 |
| Associate principal / E-flat clarinet, tenure track | Preliminary and semi-final 22–24 September; final Monday 23 November 2026 | During 2026–27 |
| Third horn, tenure track | Preliminary and semi-final 3–5 October; final Monday 23 November 2026 | During 2026–27 |
| Section viola, tenure track | Preliminary and semi-final 7–9 November; final Tuesday 24 November 2026 | Not before 2027–28 |
| Principal cello, tenure track | Preliminary and semi-final 16–18 April 2027; final Sunday 30 May 2027 | Not yet accepting applications |
| Section first and second violin, tenure track, multiple positions | Preliminary and semi-final 21–24 May 2027; final Sunday 30 May 2027 | Not yet accepting applications |
Three things on that page are worth a musician's attention. Applications for the four autumn auditions are closed; the two 2027 auditions are "not yet accepting applications", so the window for principal cello, a chair the roster shows without a principal (Daniel Laufer is listed as "Acting/Associate Principal"), has not opened. Every round, "including the final round", is held behind a screen, which the page states for each of the four autumn auditions. And the one-year violin audition on 13 September "will also be used to identify substitute and extra musicians on a per-service basis", which is how many players first get paid by an orchestra of this size. The orchestra is a partner of the National Alliance for Audition Support, which the page describes as an initiative "to increase diversity in American orchestras".
The third horn audition is a case in point of the turnover behind the announcement. Last September's release said it welcomed five musicians for 2025–26 and listed six, two of them horns, Reese Farnell and Scott Sanders, and the roster lists Farnell as third horn; the chair is nevertheless being auditioned again this October. The orchestra does not say why.
For musicians
The arithmetic is the useful part. A section chair in Atlanta pays $109,577 at base this season and $115,000 next, before overscale, per-service extra work, or the health insurance the contract preserved. The one-year violin positions auditioned on 13 September carry a contract ending 11 September 2027, with payments, the page says, prorated by start date. For the two 2027 auditions, the page is the place to watch; when applications open, the notice will appear on Cadenza's auditions board as well as on the orchestra's page, and the base scale above will be printed beside it.
The case against this article
The biographies are the orchestra's own, from the PDF attached to its release, condensed here and not independently verified; the orchestra's dates for Mulcahy (National Symphony from 2005), Blair (Kennedy Center from 2012) and Gompert (Atlanta 2023–24, Nashville 2024–26) are its own. The base-scale figures are transcribed from the auditions page on 7 September and are stated there for the 2026–27 season; the $115,000 third-year figure is from the ICSOM delegate's report, not from the contract itself, which is not on the orchestra's site. The five-chair total assumes full-season, base-scale employment for all five, which is false for the two principals by definition and may be false for start dates. The roster's "acting" labels were read on 7 September and may lag the announcement. We could read Musical America's report only to its opening lines, which say the five include "some filling long-vacant roles". The reasons the third horn chair is being re-auditioned are not stated by the orchestra.
The question
Atlanta publishes its base scale on the page where it posts auditions, which many orchestras do not, and it has now filled two principal brass chairs and three others in one season while heading, by its players' account, for a twelfth straight surplus. The two pieces of information it does not publish are the ones every applicant would like: what the principals are actually paid, and why a chair the roster shows filled by a 2025 hire is open again. The first is nobody's business but the players'. The second is a fair question for the next release.
Related: The Odds, The Audition Ledger and Louisville's record season. Auditions are on cadenza.work/browse.
Cover photograph: The lobby of Atlanta Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center, Midtown Atlanta, in May 2010. Photograph by John Phelan, CC BY 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons..
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