Drew McManus

In an apparent effort to gear up for their upcoming Washington D.C. conference, the American Symphony Orchestra League has been pounding the pavement and beating up the PR drums in efforts to paint a pleasant picture on the current state of the American orchestra business. Not that this sort of behavior is a bad thing

Given how much youth orchestras have expanded in recent years you would think that the demand for classical music is going up.  Unfortunately, that’s not precisely the case in most cities; nevertheless, youth orchestras are becoming a big business.  The biggest budget youth orchestras have budgets larger than a quarter of all ROPA ensembles and

Just a quick pointer to another good piece from Arts journal blog neighbor Andrew Taylor.  Andrew touches on a subject discussed here at the end of last April about how arts organizations will need to allow a freely moderated discussion between itself and patrons if it hopes to take full advantage of emerging technologies such

In the not too distant past, the Cold War superpowers competed on a number of fronts, including cultural accomplishments.  Although classical music functioned in a unique role as a sort of “universal language” spoken by musicians who served as ad hoc ambassadors, both superpowers wanted their ambassador musicians to speak the language a little better