A Constructive Side To Controversy

They say everything happens in groups of threes, and to help fulfill that adage we have this season’s third brouhaha surrounding dismissal issues for a music director. This time we go to the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra in La Crosse, WI where according to an article by Terry Rindfleisch in the La Crosse Tribune the LCSO’s conductor, Amy Mills, will serve her last season as music director following next year’s concert …

Read more

Too Many Notes

Awhile back I was disagreeing with a statement from Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center.  Michael asserted that there is currently an oversupply of performances in many cities throughout the country.  At the time, I thought that this was a bizarre statement to make and I essentially feel the same way today.

However, there is a situation where this statement may have some validity.  There’s a glut of orchestras across the country’s metropolitan areas that aren’t necessarily amateur but aren’t necessarily professional either (I know, that’s another discussion which has been covered here too).  Sometimes you even have orchestras in metropolitan areas that literally overlap communities.

Read more

Finding A Music Director In Kansas City

In the Sunday, May 23rd edition of the Kansas City Star, music critic Paul Horsley wrote an excellent article entitled Decision Time.  It’s about how orchestras set about selecting a new music director and it focuses on the current music director search being undertaken by the Kansas City Symphony.  It’s a well written article that’s worth your time to read and in the spirit of full disclosure; it includes a few …

Read more

Reader Response: Insufficient Communication

A frequent reader sent an email pointing out an ambiguity from last Thursday’s article entitled The Downside Of Insufficient Communication.  They pointed out that I failed to mention that the Charleston Symphony orchestra musicians recently accepted a nearly 20% pay cut in order to help keep the orchestra’s finances stable. Although I did refer to the musician pay cuts by mentioning that the Charleston Symphony Orchestra had to institute large cuts …

Read more

An Orchestral Sized Quagmire In Tacoma

At the beginning of the week, Arts Journal featured an article at Tribnet.com, the Interactive Media Division of The Tacoma News Tribune.  The article, written by Jen Graves, details the disintegration in the seventeen year relationship between the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra and the Tacoma City Ballet. Here’s a quick synopsis of the situation: For 17 of the last 20 years, the Tacoma Symphony Orchetra (TSO) has been contracted by the Tacoma …

Read more