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.

Not So Much Critical Fun This Time Around

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Well, the folks at Planet Jackson Hole published the final two articles they contracted me to write while I’m staying in Jackson Hole. The first article they printed only had minor editorial changes but these two recent articles are only sketches of what was originally submitted (but for some reason they put my name on them). It’s too bad because the originals were much better than what they eventually published. In the interest of sharing what should have been published here are both of the original works.

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A Quick Preview Of Nashville

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A friend sent me a link to a local Nashville news spot about their concert hall project. You can learn some quick info and actually see some video of what’s going on before my series of articles come out in a week or two. http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/12813.asp

Yes, You Can Change The Concert Experience

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I recently had the pleasure this week to attend a chamber music concert here at the Grand Teton Music Festival which featured, among other ensembles, several selections for bassoon quartet and solo contrabassoon. The selections were all wonderful but what really made the performance something special was the dialog being delivered by master bassoonist, Chuck Ullery. Although I thoroughly enjoyed all of the performances on that concert, the bassoon quartet stood …

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Critical Fun

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Planet Jackson Hole recently published the first of three articles (concert reviews and previews) today. You can read the article at their website (you’ll need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the article), it’s on page 35.

Beginning To Look At Venezuela

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The Partial Observer published the first in a series of articles today which begins to examine the astounding music program that’s evolved in Venezuela over the past three decades. In addition to the series of articles which will be published at The Partial Observer, there will be several more articles published here which will focus on more details than space at The Partial Observer allows. There’s a great deal to examine …

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