Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Audience Development

A Road Map For Digital Programming From Sequoia Symphony

Mon, Oct 10, 2020
At the end of last week, the Sequoia Symphony Orchestra (SSO) published a teaser video about their upcoming Music Uplink digital series. I managed to get a head’s up about the program when recording an upcoming Shop Talk episode with SSO music director Bruce Kiesling and Niccolo Go, Partner and Creative Director at Go Creative

Weapon’s Grade Elitism In 800 Words Or Less

Wed, Mar 3, 2020
Last weekend, I attended a Beethoven Festival concert here in Chicago featuring John Elliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. In a word, the group was exquisite. But I’m not a music critic so their musicality isn’t the subject of today’s post. Instead, we’re going to examine the program notes. Typically, I don’t even bother reading

Creating Better Surveys Using Narrative Driven Questions

Mon, Feb 2, 2020
Adaptistration People 060
Audience surveys have been around for ages but most I come across are still rooted firmly in an old-school approach that relies on a certain level of understanding on the part of respondents in order to be effective. But there’s value in considering an approach that relies more on narrative driven questions. Narrative driven questions

Why Yes, Ben Folds Is All Kinds Of Cool

Mon, Feb 2, 2020
Adaptistration People 188
We’ve taken a look at singer/songwriter Ben Folds’ work within the live orchestra field a few times over the years and his recent work with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) was the focus of a Fox News Power Player segment on 2/16/2020. Folds, who serves as an Artistic Advisor at the NSO, has always been

Examining The LA Opera’s Pilot Program To Put Opera Into Popular Media Culture Part 2

Tue, Jan 1, 2020
Adaptistration People 183
Over the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons, the Los Angeles (LA) Opera implemented a program to promote opera to the general public by placing opera and opera-related stories and images in popular television, film, and other entertainment media. The program came about thanks to an Opera America’s Building Opera Audiences grant. Part 1 in this series
Previous Next