I’m Off For Some Conference Work

I’ll be at the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) conference delivering a presentation on what musicians should be doing between negotiations so they can establish a conducive environment for successful negotiations and create a strong internal culture…


In particular, I’ll focus on how musicians can develop a straightforward program capable of improving communication and effectiveness at their three primary contact points: musician/management, musician/musician, and musician/public. It promises to be a lively presentation which will provide the delegates with a plan of action for taking the ideas back to their fellow musicians.

So far, I’ve had the same wonderful time I always have talking with musicians about the business. There’s certainly no shortage of topics or opinions but healthy discussion results in positive solutions.

I’ll do my best over the next couple of days to get something up since there’s certainly no shortage of topics around the business these days.

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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