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.

Announcing Adaptistration Premium: Be The Insider

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I am very pleased to announce the launch of Adaptistration Premium, the new online home for all of the Orchestra Compensation Report and Orchestra Website Review materials that were previously only available as print publications. Although the print publications have always been very popular, one of the most frequent requests is to make the data available online. Not only does Adaptistration Premium fill that void but it more than doubles the amount of data featured in the print-only material…

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2009 Compensation Report: ROPA Executives

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If you were the CEO or executive director for a ROPA orchestra in the 2006/07 season, odds are you enjoyed a healthy increase in compensation. In fact, the average executive compensation (for those working a full season) increased at a rate three times greater than the percent increase in total expenditures while base musician compensation decreased by nearly five percent…

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2009 Compensation Report: ICSOM Music Directors

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Although the 2006/07 season didn’t bestow the average ICSOM music director with outlandish improvements in compensation, many of these stakeholders managed to set all time high compensation levels at his/her respective organization. Moreover, one conductor set a new record for the entire field with an annual compensation totaling nearly $3,000,000…

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