It’s Tuba Wednesday

There’s a fabulous article written by Alison Bowen in the 2/12/2019 edition of the Chicago Tribune that highlights two young tuba players in the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO). Bowen chronicles the realities for tubists Bobby Black and Chrisjovan Masso as they grow past their respective school programs and into something like the CYSO.

It’s a great feel good read and only takes a few minutes.

But that’s just the first of tuba related news in the span of one week.

Richard White’s documentary film, R.A.W. Tuba, recently premiered in Baltimore, MD. We examined White’s project with Baltimore filmmakers Darren Durlach and David Larson back in November while the Indiegogo campaign was in full swing. It’s great to see they the film is complete and launched with a successful premier at White’s former school, Baltimore School for the Arts.

The 2/5/2019 edition of The Daily Beast published an article by Tim Teeman that digs into White’s thoughts and observations about diversity. They cover a lot of ground and there’s no shortage of thought-provoking content.

While one may be the loneliest number, for tuba players, at least it means they get principal pay…most of the time 🙂

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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