Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
In case you missed the bombshell news over the weekend, the New York Times published an article by Dan Wakin on 1/11/2013 which reported recently hired New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) President & CEO Richard Dare had quit in light of a 1996 case in which he was charged with an “attempted lewd act upon” a 15-year-old girl. Accordingly, today’s article will focus on issues related to due diligence and executive …
In the process of writing an article about governance and ethics, it became clear that it would be useful to first provide a precursor article with an overview of who’s who within orchestra governance. One of the odd byproducts of increased public exposure by way of labor disputes is an increase in those on the outside looking in who have no idea how orchestra governance works. More often than not, the …
On March 18, 2005 I published an article titled Staring At The Crossroads In Salt Lake which examined the pitfalls associated with the process and subsequent decision to merge the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera organizations into what is now the Utah Symphony & Opera (US&O). Since the merger, the organization has been rocked with numerous financial, operational, and governance problems. In 2005, the US&O hired Tom Morris to conduct an …
A big hats off to Joe Patti over at Butts In The Seats for posting an absolutely terrific article on 12/3/2012 that casts a pragmatic eye on Baumol’s cost disease. And if there’s ever a topic in this field that is all but assured to raise hackles and inspire heel entrenchment, it’s Baumol’s cost disease. If you’re not up on the epidemic, here’s the quick and dirty description: it denotes an …
The always astute Joe Patti posted an intriguing article over at Butts In The Seats on 11/20/2012 that wonders about the value of liquidation bankruptcy on instituting new model type of change. Patti uses the ongoing Hostess liquidation saga in the face of employee’s refusing to take additional concessions in the wake of a series of cuts since 2004. Patti speculates on the long term value of bankruptcy decisions; although they …