Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
Times are tough all over for orchestras, and not just in America. A recent article in Deutsche Welle reports the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra closed up shop after they failed to secure some last minute funding from government sources. The article goes on to report that the orchestra managers attempted to raise funds privately but were unsuccessful in their attempts. The most striking part of the article is the final sentence, “The …
There’s a big fuss brewing in Oregon over an the issue of artistic review. If you’re not familiar with that concept and how it relates to orchestras, it’s the process whereby a tenured musician can lose their job due to artistic reasons (their playing isn’t as good as it should be). In short, it’s how orchestras rid themselves of players who have, for whatever reason, lost it. I know most people …
One of the chief complaints I have about this business is its apparent inability to establish an appropriate frame of reference. For example, things change slowly in the world of orchestra management, so slowly that it seems like even an evolutionary timeline measures change in smaller intervals. Adequate levels of adaptation have been absent for so long that even the slightest introduction of change is heralded by some as “significant progress”. …
A few days ago, Greg Sandow presented a scenario and posed a good question regarding whether or not the average patron would be interested in all of the non artistic issues within their local orchestra. In particular, he was wondering if a concert review of a last minute change in repertoire (which as a result increased the cost of the performance) should be worth mentioning in a concert review, I’ve been …
I received the sad news yesterday that the Nashville Symphony’s long time music director, Kenneth Schermerhorn passed away early at the Vanderbilt Medical Center on Monday, April 18th, 2005. Maestro Schermerhorn led the Nashville Symphony for 22 years and oversaw everything from the organization filing for bankruptcy in the 1980’s through their recent grand accomplishment of commencing construction on their new $120 million dedicated concert hall which is named for the …