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A recent article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review by Mark Kanny reports that the Pittsburgh Symphony president, Larry Tamburri as making the following remarks: “A basic flaw in the economic model of American orchestras compared with most other businesses, says Tamburri, is that productivity increases in music are not possible to compensate for inflationary pressures on salaries, health care and other costs. Music is inherently labor- and time-intensive to prepare and present. …

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I recently had a conversation with Lois Svard, pianist, academic, champion of new music, and creativity guru, about the work she’s engaged in at Innovera.  Innovera is a consulting firm that specializes in helping businesses and organizations learn how to access their own potential for creativity and innovation, thus improving not only individual and group performance, but also ensuring the long-range success of the organization. In one of my very first …

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I was very pleased to receive an email from none other than Adrian Ellis, the gentleman responsible for the quote I scrutinized line by line in my article Diminished Philosophy.  He ran across the article via a regular web search and felt compelled to write in order to further explain his views. We had a wonderful email exchange about our disagreements regarding the current nature of nonprofit industry in general and …

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The train ride back to Baltimore yesterday provided me some ample time to reflect on what happened during the Soundcheck program yesterday with John Schaefer. One of the strongest impressions I came away with was how broad based the callers were.  I was fully expecting the vast majority of callers to be professional classically trained musicians; but in reality, it was the exact opposite. That simple fact went a long to …

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