Financial Crisis In The Board Room!!

There are few emotions as powerful as the urge to blame, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be funny. Mel Brooks, a master at disarming animosity through humor, once said “Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said” and if you take a long hard look at some of the things we do in this business (all of us) you begin to see that we’re ripe for satire. After all, if we can’t laugh at ourselves then, well, you know the rest. So enjoy this orchestra cartoon sneak peek…

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Unexpected Bear Traps In Philadelphia

In what is shaping up to be a classic example of good intentions run amuck, the embattled Philadelphia Orchestra became the target of Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist, Karen Heller. In her 2/7/2010 article, she takes the organization to task over their new slogan and branded marketing campaign “Unexpect yourself.” Although unabashedly frank in her analysis, Heller’s observations are spot-on and exactly the sort of scrutiny this business needs at this point in time…

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An Orchestra Life Cartoon: Take Two

Long time readers will recall that I spent some time looking for a cartoonist back in 2005 with the goal of creating a cartoon that brings to life the magic that is working and living in the orchestra field. The idea simply wasn’t able to get off the ground at that time but things have changed and there might be some hope for this project yet…

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Adaptistration: In Reverse

Kim Witman of the Wolf Trap Opera Company has organized a cross-blog event for today’s announcement of the WTOC 2010 season by doing guest blog posts and interviews in a few places across the blogosphere. Kim contributed a wonderful opera oriented essay during the 2007 Take A Friend To the Orchestra Opera initiative and her guest post today is a wonderful evolution of that idea…

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Things That Make You Go Buh!?! Honolulu

On Friday, 2/5/2010 Hawaii Public Radio aired an interview conducted by Noe Tanigawa to catch up on the current status of the bankrupt Honolulu Symphony Orchestra (HSO). The 29:35 segment featured excerpts from separate conversations with HSO Executive Director Majken Mechling and HSO tympanist and musicians’ representative Steve Dinion. Tanigawa did an excellent job at not only bringing out new details since the HSO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 12/18/2009 (more) but she managed to uncover two items of interest supporting why the HSO might be better off filing Chapter 7…

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