- Well, my name is Richard Brown,
and I'm a professor here at Rice University
Shepherd School of Music.
I'm the Professor of Percussion.
And in addition to that,
I have found myself in a position of being a contractor,
a contractor of musicians.
It's nothing that I set out to do
but for some reason or another,
over the last 10 years I have fallen into it
and it has become very successful.
You might want to know what a contractor does.
In every major city there's at least one, two,
or in big cities there could be as many as five
or six musical contractors
and those are people who hire musicians.
When a church, or a show, or a theater,
or an opera company wants to hire musicians
they rely on somebody that they trust
to provide them with the best players
that are available in town,
and that person is called a contractor.
He has the contacts,
he knows who to call,
and any smart organization will know
who the contractor is in their town to call
and ask them to put together the orchestra for them.
So that's basically the job of a contractor
is to be aware of who are the best players in town,
who are the new players in town who could fill in,
should a need arise
and to work with the performing arts organization
to provide them with the best orchestra possible.