Back From Caracas

I returned from Caracas very late last evening and am just getting acclimated back from the wonderful hospitality of my Venezuelan and New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic orchestra hosts.


I’ll be taking a few days to catch up on everything but there’s much to discuss about what I encountered during the past four days.  The Venezuelan program is full of significant relevance to what’s been happening here in the U.S. and after this week you can expect to begin finding articles.


Furthermore, you can expect the anxiously anticipated format change her at Adaptistration as we switch over to the Moveable Type blogging platform.  There’s also the overdue review of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s ten year plan, an in depth look at what’s been going on at Nashville as their new concert hall springs to life, and much, much more that’s been developing in the business over the recent weeks.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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