Is there a term for an organization whose membership is limited to a specific, relatively short period of time, and is constantly changing? For example, the Vienna Boys Choir. If I see them yesterday, and then see them again next year, it won’t be the same choir. Many of the boys I saw yesterday will still be there, but some will be gone (too old), and some new ones will replace the old ones who left.
If I see them in, say, six year, none of the boys I saw in 2006 will still be there. It will still be the Vienna Boys Choir, but with a completely different roster of performers.
Is there a term for this type of organization? Another example is the pop group Menudo.
Honestly, most choirs [vienna, mormon, random philharmonic and so forth] are not expected to maintain a constant member roll. People arrive and leave all the time. The whole rock band style of a firm group is fairly modern. Actually, many early rockers didnt have a firm band and used session musicians. Certainly there would be core groups in many swing/jazz/blues/orchestras but those tended to be long time froends and associates, and other session musicians and singers filling out the list as needed. I know frex large bands like Tommy Dorsey changed girl and male singers fairly frequently, and his orchestra members sort of changed - bands were always passing members back and forth as people got sick, had to leave the road, started going in studio to make a disc …
Age-limited or age-restricted. (Which automatically implies “high turnover”; the rapidity of the turnover depends on the size of the permitted age range.)
The OP isn’t necessarily talking about high turnover though; just looking for a term that describes a group composed of an arbitrary (or at least mutable) set.
TD actually was a firin’ fool – lousy temper and intolerant of the slightest screw-up. Tommy had a particular grudge against singers – he’d warn other leaders, “hire this person and I personally will make things tough for you and your band.” Then again, some bands (Duke Ellington’s) kept guys for years, even decades. Almost every band had one or two perennials.
It’s like what Lao Tsu said about the river. If you dip your toes in the river, then do it again twenty minutes later, in one sense it’s the same river, with you on the same bank. In another sense, the water you first dipped your toes in is far downstream, so it’s not the same river at all.
Other examples would be theatre or dance troupes, symphonic orchestras, stars of my pornographic daydreams.
The Boston Pops are not the same players as twenty years ago but it is still the Boston Pops. The Bolshoi Ballet has different dancers but it is the company that maintains the consistency of the group.
