Commentary

It’s Time To Change up The Conversation On Concert Attire

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Over the weekend, I ran across a Facebook discussion about what patrons wear to the orchestra. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it followed all of the well-worn paths about what everyone thought was acceptable or not and it stuck me just how much those talking points are out of touch. Artistic excellence is inconsequential if you aren’t selling tickets so to that end, the field desperately needs to throw all these old conversations out …

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This Is How You Draw A Line In The Sand

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Back in March, I published some early thoughts on what at the time was the growing number of arts and culture organizations cutting ties with artists who are supporters of Russian President, Vladimir Putin. At that time, arts organizations weren’t terribly clear about why they found actions by artists like conductor Valery Gergiev unacceptable. I hinted at posting some additional thoughts about my concerns related to virtue signaling and artists being unfairly …

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A Classy Response To An Ugly Stereotype

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The 4/22/2022 edition of cbc.ca published an article by Aidan Cox that examines the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra’s (NBYO) elegant response to the latest outbreak of corporate foot-in-mouth disease. It started with an ad for the 2022 Infiniti QX60 that touts the vehicle’s sound proofing, but does so by pulling out an ugly stereotype. As it turns out, this didn’t sit well with NBYO’s orchestra president, Ken MacLeod “Even though [the …

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I’m Not Sure HR Mulligans Count

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The 4/6/2022 edition of SFCV.org published an article by Tom Jacobs that examines some of the aftermath of Long Beach Opera (LBO) and the mass resignation of Alexander Gedeon (minister of culture), Derrell Acon (associate artistic director), and Elijah Cineas (education manager). That resignation was due to those individuals feeling the LBO “a culture of misogyny, a sustained pattern of racial tokenism, a lack of defined values and principles, a structural …

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The Cost Of Doing Business Online Is Going Up And It Has Nothing To Do With Inflation

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While it may not seem like a big price increase, .com domain registrations and renewals are going to go up 6.9 percent. That’s likely just the beginning thanks to the sweetheart deal the company that owns a monopoly on .com registrations, Verisign, received from the Trump administration in the form of a no-bid deal that also removed decades long regulations that capped how much they could increase prices year to year. …

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