Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
Labor disputes and institutional crises tend to garner plenty of attention in traditional media outlets as they unfold, but follow-up articles are fewer in number. Most tend to be puff pieces crafted more by an organization’s PR department than a genuine post mortem, but the 3/16/2018 edition of Texas Public Radio (TPR) published an exception to the rule. Their short segment examines the tumultuous week at the San Antonio Symphony (SAS) …
Have you ever taken the time to think about how the tenets of Improv intersect with a nonprofit arts organization’s mission? I can only speak for myself and to that end, I can certainly say “no.” But it turns out, the two are closely related. Recently, violinist Holly Mulcahy published an article at Neo Classical that takes a deep dive into how the Improv concept of Yes, And helped shape the …
An article by Daniel Braden in the 2/11/18 edition of the Morning Call examines how recent changes in the US tax code will have a decidedly negative impact on orchestra musicians classified as employees (as opposed to self employed contractors). The author is a former tax consultant specializing in serving musicians and according to his analysis of the new laws, employee classified musicians are going to lose the ability to deduct …
In what might feel like déjà vu at this point, the Oregon Bach Festival (OBF) is once again thrust into PR crisis mode shortly after their last brush fire seemed to be fading into memory. The latest incident was made public via the 1/26/2018 edition of the Eugene Weekly in an article by Bob Keefer. According to that article, the OBF hired a guest conductor, Jaap ter Linden, who was previously dismissed …
Now that the San Antonio Symphony (SAS) has made it past the darkest hour and are firmly headed toward the dawn, the stakeholders are now free to triage the next wave of challenges. The 1/20/2018 edition of the San Antonio Express-News published an article by Deborah Martin that takes a very detailed look at what the organization has accomplished and some of the challenges that lie ahead. Here’s an overview of …