Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Decision Day In Minneapolis (Update 4:45pm CT – Carnegie Dates Cancelled)

Mon, Sep 9, 2013
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Today marks the deadline for whether or not Osmo Vanska will continue as the Minnesota Orchestra Association’s (MOA) music director. Over the weekend, the musicians unanimously rejected the MOA’s latest offer, which retained the employer’s primary goal of reducing musician expenses by 25 percent; the only change in the recent incarnation was instead of instituting

The Orchestra 990 Database Project: Exploratory Poll

Fri, Sep 9, 2013
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Yesterday’s post about the potential for developing an online keyword search database for all professional orchestras produced a good deal of feedback, thanks to everyone who took the time to write in with your thoughts etc. As it stands, there was enough interest that the idea has been officially upgraded to the early stages of

How Many Times Have You Wished This Existed For Orchestras

Thu, Sep 9, 2013
Just imagine how nice it would be to conduct a search for “music director” across all professional orchestra IRS Form 990s for the past decade. For now, it is still a dream but there’s an interesting article by Lucy Bernholz at PHILANTHROPY 2173 (h/t Thomas Cott) that examines a free offering from The Foundation Center

We Owe It To Ourselves To Be Better

Wed, Sep 9, 2013
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Joe Patti published a spectacular article on 9/18/2013 titled Drama Is A Choice that, among other things, examines the long term impact of becoming conditioned to operating in high drama environments. He suggests that even though there are no shortage of reasons why arts groups are operating in extended crisis management mode, that doesn’t mean

So. Many. Jobs.

Tue, Sep 9, 2013
Adaptistration Jobs
It must be that time of year because the job openings listed at Adaptistration Jobs went ka-boom yesterday with six new listings. There’s a big mix across several departments and everything from entry level through department head openings looking for people and all of yesterday’s openings are full time positions.
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