Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Don’t You Believe It!

Mon, Mar 3, 2010
Among the list of items for why classical music is dying is the ever expanding number of options people have to be entertained at home and the mac daddy heavy-weight in this arena is cable/satellite/fiber optics. I have to admit to being a bit of a cable Luddite as our household has been rock-bottom-basement-analog-subscription plan

Concessionary News From Baltimore

Fri, Mar 3, 2010
The 3/25/2010 edition of the Baltimore Sun includes an article by Tim Smith that reports on the recent concessionary contract between the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and its musicians. According to the article, the base musician salary will drop 16.6 percent to $67,600, “essentially the same as it was in 2001.” But what’s really interesting

Sneezing HTML Code

Thu, Mar 3, 2010
It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Right now, I’m eyes deep in a major development job via the Venture Project and at the same time, the majority of my regular consulting work is also very tech oriented. I’ve spent so much time working with properties, values, and other CSS syntax goodies that html code

It’s Officially A Hit!

Wed, Mar 3, 2010
Since its launch earlier this month, Adaptistration’s new orchestra life cartoon, Who’s Minding The Score?, has been a unmitigated, smashing success! Traffic on publication days is through the roof (as in twice of the blog’s daily average traffic, which is great to begin with) and it stays strong through the remainder of the week. Thanks

Killing Off The Audience?

Tue, Mar 3, 2010
Just a few pointers today centered around the same theme. First, conductor Bill Eddins is in full rant mode in his post How To Make Sure We Don’t Have An Audience in 20 years – Part The First where he levels his ire on the practice of closed rehearsals. This reminded me of an entire

Contract News Out Of Detroit

Mon, Mar 3, 2010
The 3/18/2010 edition of the Detroit Free Press published an article by Mark Stryker about the ongoing negotiations between the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and their musicians. The big news is although both sides were engaged in talks for nearly a year to modify the existing contract before its expiration date, they haven’t been able

Venture Project Update: Confidence + Control = Happiness

Fri, Mar 3, 2010
Although it is easy to get caught up in all of the tools and other tech oriented goodies that will make Venture a leading arts oriented platform, there is simply no denying the one component tying it all together is the Solution Academy, Venture’s exclusive member’s only support and training community. After all, what’s the

Claims Of “Gross Mismanagement And Incompetence” In Honolulu

Thu, Mar 3, 2010
According to two news reports (here and here), the Honolulu Symphony Musicians presented a filing this week that “(Based) on its history of gross mismanagement and incompetence …management is incapable of the task reorganization and a Chapter 11 trustee should be appointed, or, in the alternative, the case should be converted to Chapter 7 or

Taking The Lead In Website Usability

Wed, Mar 3, 2010
Regular readers know that websites are a big topic here at Adaptistration. The annual orchestra website reviews consume several weeks of time each year and add to that the plethora of new media and web/tech related articles and it becomes clear that issues related to technology and the arts are of considerable interest. Consequently, it

Unleash Your Inner Maven

Tue, Mar 3, 2010
The new TAFTO microsite is doing its job by generating interest and I’ve received a number of notes from folks planning their own events. This makes me think it would be a good idea to set up a special reader’s report section where patrons can share details about their own TAFTO events. In the meantime,
Previous Next