Uncategorized

Concert Companion or ORBIT Part 1

by

It’s time for an exercise in thinking like an orchestra manager.  Here’s the setup:

  • Your orchestra is loosing its audience and you’re considering the benefits of using a technology based product to help build it back up again.
  • Like all orchestras your marketing dollars are limited and the man-hours you can use for writing grant proposals are at their limits.
  • You hear about two new technology based audience development initiatives, each in initial stages of deployment but having a certain amount of promise.
  • One option has received some positive national media attention in a prominent New York City newspaper (and a little bad press too) but the other option is already up running on a regular basis with a few orchestras.

    Read more

Keeping Their Heads Above Water

by

There’s been a great deal of national attention devoted to contract negotiations and musician salary these past several weeks – from this column and many others across the country.  And the majority of those discussions focus on how much players earn in the “Big 5” as well as examining other types of benchmarks used to differentiate an international orchestra from a regional ensemble. Fellow AJ blogger, Greg Sandow touched on both …

Read more

Play And Talk In Philadelphia

by

Shortly after midnight on 9/20/04 the negotiating teams for The Philadelphia Orchestra Association and the American Federation of Musicians, Local 77,  jointly issued the following statement: The negotiating teams for The Philadelphia Orchestra Association and the American Federation of Musicians, Local 77, have been working for many months in an effort to negotiate a new agreement.   The Musicians’ negotiating team has been creative in suggesting ideas to generate additional revenue and …

Read more

Looking At Seattle From A Different Point Of View

by

By now, most folks inside the classical music world have heard about what’s going on at the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO).  But in case you haven’t beep keeping up, here’s the synopsis: the SSO made the decision to not renew 20 year veteran concertmaster Ilkka Talvi’s contract for the 2004-2005 concert season. Since the SSO announced the decision there have been a few articles appearing in the local Seattle newspapers discussing …

Read more

Mediocre Sex

by

Ok, the headline was a lure.  What I’m talking about is using sex to sell mediocre musicians playing music that would aspire to be called mediocre. I published an article today in my Neo Classical column at The Partial Observer that examines how cross over and selling classical music with sex can sometimes go well and sometimes go very, very bad (think “Bond”). From a manager’s point of view, these are …

Read more