From out of the gloomy mist that has characterized business news the past few weeks, a bright and shiny silver lining is threading its way across several cities this weekend in the form of free simulcast concerts. For the past few years, operas have dominated this niche but this season, the Nashville Symphony jumps on the bandwagon with their opening night concert on 09/11/2009 featuring pianist Lang Lang and the debut of new music director, Giancarlo Guerrero…
Audience Development
Hang ‘Em By His Castanets!
For those of us who work at the business end of classical music, discussions about non-artistic components of the concert experience come up all the time. If you’re a regular Adaptistration reader, you know that we examine those issues on a regular basis and my opinion is that there are more non-artistic reasons behind most declines in concert attendance than artistic reasons. As such, it tends to catch me off guard when stakeholders within the business fail to take advantage of useful non-artistic criticisms simply because they are intertwined with uncomplimentary artistic observations…
“A Ship Is Safe In Harbor, But That’s Not What Ships Are For.”
A short while ago, Joe Patti posed a question over at Butts In The Seats asking whether or not orchestras should confine their programming to just a few genres. The first thing that popped into my head when I read his original post was a quote from Mark Twain: “I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”
Enough Of What I Think, What’s Your Opinion?
The ubiquitous standing ovation. Just about every orchestra musician that blogs has written about this topic at one point or another and most share a common thread; audience response to a lackluster performance with a standing ovation can have an unintentional demoralizing impact. During the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MO) board retreat last week, we talked about how the organization can develop its interaction with the audience and this topic popped up. But instead of warming up stale conversation leftovers, the organization’s board president, John Simmons, offered an intriguing personal encounter that is worth sharing…
TAFTO 2009 Contribution: Curt Long
Curt Long is a perfect example of the sort of fantastic orchestra executives you don’t hear enough about. After a long and successful tenure as Dayton Philharmonic’s executive director, he recently assumed the same duties with the Alabama Symphony. Curt’s Take A Friend To Orchestra (TAFTO) contribution focuses on how orchestras need to get outside of what he defines as the “comfortable, insulated insiders’ view of what audiences want” and work toward creating an environment that attracts and retains new listeners…