Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
In the post economic downturn environment, it is all too easy to become the victim of detrimental group-think; musicians are overpaid, board members don’t donate enough, managers should work harder etc. Even though most of us who make a living in the arts know better, it is good to see traditional media sources picking up on the dangers associated with letting this sort of detrimental thinking go unchecked. Case in point, …
Simply put, business is booming. Back in January I published an article about the growth going on within The Venture Platform segment of my business and since then, the rate of increase has only picked up; moreover, a similar uptick in non-tech related consulting work kicked in shortly after the New Year. The only downside to this is a reduced amount of time to dedicate toward some of the long standing …
Following last week’s board meeting at the San Diego Opera (SDO), several key board members responsible for the initial decision to shut down the company resigned, including SDO Board President Karen Cohn. This doesn’t come as an unexpected surprise but the real curiosity here is the retention of the company’s general and artistic director, Ian Campbell; a figure many believe is the source of this quake. The remaining board members announced …
One of the mainstays of my traditional consulting work is negotiating individual work agreements; for managers, this usually focuses on executive employment agreements and for musicians, individual overscale agreements and one of the first aspects of that work is to identify non-monetary perks that have variable degrees of value for the client. More often than not, they tend to overlook a number of items simply because it never occurred to them …
The 4/15/2014 edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune published an article by Pam Kragen that examines recent developments at the San Diego Opera (SDO). Of particular interest is news of a new voice in the discussion that may be just what the situation needs to embrace a new plan capable of keeping the company going. Worth noting is the introduction of Opera America (OA), the national service organization for opera, into …