Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Operations

Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

Mon, Dec 12, 2010
Guest-Author
I arrived at my new job on June 1, 2008, ready to delve into the standard industry-wide issues plaguing Orchestra Iowa: plummeting ticket sales, strained relations with the musicians, immense debt, and no cash to pay bills. Although I had spent several months before my arrival creating a first year outline, that plan literally got

Take This Audition And Shove It

Tue, Apr 4, 2009
There has been some intriguing discussion as of late among some cultural bloggers about the audition process. It started off on 4/5/2009 with a post by Jeffrey Weisner at the Peabody Double Bass Blog examining the sometimes slippery process that results in a “no-hire” audition. Weisner’s post is refreshingly candid and offers a valuable glimpse

Job Descriptions: Not For the Feint-Of-Heart

Wed, Aug 8, 2008
Thanks to Cincinnati Inquirer music critic Janelle Gelfand for pointing me toward the job description for the President & CEO position at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. It just so happens that writing job descriptions is a live-it, breathe-it, and eat-it sort of thing in my Area-51 project so her timing couldn’t be better…

Forget Dress Codes On Stage, What About The Office?

Wed, Jul 7, 2008
Sometimes your memory plays tricks on you but sometimes it delivers a misplaced treat. I was the fortunate recipient of the latter this week when an article from NewMusicBox.com c. 2004 (which is ancient history in Internet years) popped into my head. Written by Joseph Dalton shortly after NPAC 2004, the author relates his time

No Pathos For Summer Festivals

Fri, Jun 6, 2008
Although daily traffic was on par for the blog average, the reader poll from Wednesday, 6/25/08 garnered the lowest number of participants of any poll in Adaptistration’s history. At the time this article was written, the Music Festival Convention poll only managed to generate 10 percent of average poll response. I admit that the low