Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Drew McManus

Amendment No. 175 Voting Results

Wed, Feb 2, 2009
Thanks to Adaptistration reader Geo, we now have the official Senate roll call votes for the “Limitation on Funds Amendment No. 175,” otherwise known as “Coburn Amendment No. 309.” You can find text results at the senate.gov website but since a picture really is worth a thousand words, I took a moment to arrange the

Burn, Baby, Burn.

Tue, Feb 2, 2009
After watching Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) – a politician so evil even his own lawyer wants nothing to do with him – lead the charge to eviscerate the .0000588 percent of the economic stimulus package directed toward the arts, I can’t help but think of a passage from John Schaefer’s 1/15/2009 blog post: At times

Post Inauguration Cultural Confidence Levels

Mon, Feb 2, 2009
As we slide past the second full week of the new administration and observe boisterous debate about economic recovery plans every day, the overall impact of these events have had mixed effects on cultural confidence levels. On one hand, respondents feel better about current economic conditions (although the prevailing sentiment is “negative”) but the outlook

Madison’s Red Herring Special

Fri, Feb 2, 2009
When considering historical reasons behind work stoppages in the orchestra business, what comes to mind are intense disagreements on financial compensation and/or work rules, impending financial impasse, entrenched positions among stakeholders, attempts to implement sizeable budget cuts, etc. After the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO) announced they were cancelling their 2/27/2009 Masterworks concert due to what

Self Inflicted Wounds

Thu, Feb 2, 2009
Holly Mulcahy published the last installment in her series of articles which examines how each group of orchestral stakeholders can manage to alienate current and potential concertgoers. Having already covered music directors, musicians, and managers, the final article takes a satirical look at how audience members manage to alienate each other. I’m sure any long
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