Hi Rok - none of your questions have easy, short answers. I won't attempt to address them all in one response. I think tonight I will concentrate on the last three. #5 is the only easy answer. No one owns orchestras. Like pretty much all arts organizations, all symphonies are non-profits. They have to raise the entire budget all over again every single season. Ticket sales only account for a very small percentage of an orchestra's needed income - usually only about 25% at the very most, often quite a bit under that.
OK, numbers 4 and 6 are directly related, as the main difference between the top tier orchestras and those under them is pay scale. They have the largest budgets, and can pay the most, so they attract the best players when there are openings. They are so called "destination" orchestras - jobs you don't leave once you get one, unless you move to another one of them, which does sometimes happen. As I mentioned before, all of the top tier orchestras have 52 week seasons, which is another difference. Not all of the orchestras in my second tier I listed in that previous orchestras have 52 week seasons anymore. Some of them have been cut back in recent years, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. That's a whole separate issue I won't go into here.
In all of the major orchestras (and most of the small ones, too), there are collective bargaining agreements, so no two orchestras will pay exactly the same or have exactly the same working conditions. There is always a base salary that most of the rank and file musicians (such as myself) make. Some orchestras also have a modest seniority pay system as well, but most of the people in any given orchestra are making the same pay. The titled people will make overscale, almost always based on a percentage above the base salary, though principals can often negotiate more. The concertmaster traditionally has a separate contract that is quite a bit higher than even the other principals. The music director (conductor), however, is not part of the CBA - they are always considered part of management, and their contracts have nothing to do with the musicians'. They also get paid far more.
In the very biggest orchestras, like the traditional big five you mentioned, for instance, the base salary right now is in the very low six figures - not a whole lot over 100,000 a year. In the second tier orchestras I mentioned, the base salary might be about half of that. In some of the smaller (not full time) orchestras, say those that may play about six or eight concert sets in a year and are composed of free-lance musicians, the total pay might be just a few thousand dollars for the season. Musicians in these type of orchestras are considered "independent contractors" and have no benefits. They are paid "per service," one service being one rehearsal, or one concert. There are also some orchestras that have a full-time, salaried core of players, that are augmented at times by part-time, "per service" free-lancers. Different groups are structured differently, depending largely on budget size. So there are lots of different levels.
I will address your other questions later, hopefully at least one of them tomorrow.
