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.

Seeing Past The Anger

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Adaptistration People 078

I recently received a letter from a violist in a Texas orchestra who submitted their letter with the moniker “Pissed Off Violist”.  They had a great deal to rant about: Thank you for your multiple articles on the unbalanced salary issue with Executive Directors and Music Directors.  I am a violist in a medium sized full time orchestra and I resent not only the difference in my salary and our conductor …

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Reader Response: Reassessing The Music Director

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Last weeks’ series on music directors generated a great deal of email from readers, most of which were musicians, and they have generously granted permission to include excerpts from their correspondence in today’s Reader Response.  But first, I wrote to JoAnn Falletta to ask a few questions about her role as music director for both the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony.  Ms. Falletta graciously responded with these thoughts about her position in both orchestras:

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Video Game Music and Music Director Feedback

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I have an article published at The Partial Observer today that deals with the issue of video game music.  On May 10th, the L.A. Philharmonic gave a performance featuring music from the video game “Final Fantasy” and tickets sold out with three days of going on sale.   But the concert wasn’t their idea; the orchestra was hired, reluctantly, by the company that designed the video game. Fellow AJblogger Greg Sandow published …

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Diagnosing The Problem – Short and Sweet

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Fellow AJ Blogger Tyler Green posted an article this week where he sums up one of the leading problems with non profit management in two succinct sentences: “The best non-profit administration is done in private, so seemlessly that no one outside senior staff and the board knows what’s really going on. That makes it all the more fascinating when a non-profit completely messes it up “ And orchestra management is no …

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Double Dipping

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Throughout this series of articles there has been an ongoing discussion about music directors not having to spend as much time performing as compared to the musicians.  So what exactly do music directors do with all of this down time?  Well, you’ll find them doing everything from guest conducting appearances at other orchestras to serving as another full time music director in a completely different orchestra. While there certainly isn’t anything …

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