It’s A Little Kitschy But I’ve Heard Worse

Just in case you haven’t seen it already, you really should check out the video of Lithuanian conductor/composer Mindaugas Piečaitis’ piece he composed to accompany one of Nora, the piano-playing cat’s videos. It’s actually a lovely tune and he does an excellent job at extracting the harmonic structure based on Nora’s playing and turning it into a piece for chamber orchestra….

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With Friends Like These?

Every now and then a topic here at Adaptistration generates a great deal of private email responses; the most recent example are the responses to the 7/13/09 article which examined how the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) distributed economic stimulus funds. Toward the end of the article, I pointed out that some of the grant recipients were performing arts service organizations and postulated that some of their respective members may not approve of their service organization applying for the same grants they are…

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Increasing Revenue Through Micro Fundraising

Last July, we took a quick look at how orchestras can benefit from micro fundraising (or from the donor’s perspective, micro philanthropy) but never really followed up on it. In 2008, the artificial economy was in full swing and most orchestras weren’t concerned about maximizing small dollar giving. In 2009, it is a different story and orchestras of all budget size can’t afford the luxury of staying inside development comfort zones…

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Show A Little Love

Sometimes the best things in life really are free and cultural blogs have been one of the more pleasant incarnations of that idiom in recent years. Compared to a few years ago, the quantity, diversity, and creativeness of cultural blogs has exploded but one aspect remains constant throughout most blogs: in order to create worthwhile content, it takes time. As such, I’m proclaiming that today marks the beginning of the Show Your Favorite Cultural Bloggers Some Love week. Fortunately, showing your love for blogs is pretty easy…

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