Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Commentary

So Much Baltimore

Fri, Apr 4, 2022
Of all the organizations that appear at Adaptistration, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has the fourth highest number of articles (others being Detroit, Minnesota, and Philadelphia respectively). More often than not, they appear thanks to some sort of questionable governance practice, labor strife, or musician behavior. Here are the most popular articles as determined from when

Well This Was Unexpected (Again)

Thu, Apr 4, 2022
In July 2021, we took a quick look at the sudden and unexpected departure of then San Francisco Symphony CEO Mark C. Hanson. At the time, I indicated this type of abrupt departure raises eyebrows. Fast forward several months and Hanson turns up as the new CEO at…wait for it…Baltimore. According to the orchestra’s press

An Ounce Of HR Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure, Part 2

Tue, Mar 3, 2022
In Part 1, we started examining several points from  Emma Quackenbush’s article in the 3/16/2022 edition of Van-Magainze.com about how the lack of adequate Human Resources (HR) practices has hobbled the internal culture inside professional orchestras. Today’s installment will continue where we left off as well as considering options for making things better. I was especially glad to

An Ounce Of HR Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure, Part 1

Mon, Mar 3, 2022
For the past two decades, I’ve written about how the lack of adequate Human Resources (HR) practices has hobbled the internal culture inside professional orchestras. As a result, workplace satisfaction, the one thing nonprofit organizations supposedly offer to offset competitive pay, is so bad it continues to be one of the few third-rail topic neither

Employers Behaving Badly

Fri, Mar 3, 2022
Just a short, but poignant, rant to round out the week. Recently, I hired a new contract worker and after their first onboard meeting with one of the software engineers they reached out in Slack with the following query: “I wanted to ask if meetings should also be recorded on my timesheet.” I get it.
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