Off To Dallas

I’m in Dallas today for some HEARTbeats Foundation related work and while here, I’ll be attending the Dallas Symphony’s Beethoven Triple Concerto concert featuring Chee-Yun, Lynn Harrell, and Anne-Marie McDermott. The concert will be conducted by Jaap van Zweden and this will be the first time I’ve heard him conduct the Dallas symphony, so it should be a fascinating concert. As an aside, I wonder if any Texas based orchestra has laid claim to the tag “Lone Star Symphony”…

Adaptistration People 152In the meantime and per numerous reader requests, I wanted to post some links that are closely related to yesterday’s “Best Orchestras To Work For” post:

In case you need a Detroit Symphony Orchestra news fix, here’s the latest from Mark Stryker in the Detroit Free Press on the newest round of 11th hour negotiations scheduled for this Friday.

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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