Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
In case you missed it, the Minnesota Orchestra (MO) seems to be gearing up for trouble. The 12/7/2011 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune published an article by Graydon Royce that reports the MO is posting a $2.9 million deficit, or slightly less than 10 percent on of their $30.4 million annual budget. What’s intriguing in this situation are the details from the orchestra’s leadership.
I’ve had a number of requests for a copy of my TEDx presentation on labor relations and the arts so I wanted to take a moment today and post the slides along with the script. Since I used an iPad teleprompter app, the actual presentation was pretty much verbatim; as such, this should provide a very clear idea of what transpired…
The August, 2010 edition of International Musician published an article by Christopher Durham, American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Symphonic Services Division (SSD) Director and Assistant to the President, titled Quality Leadership Is Essential in Difficult Times. Don’t let the obvious nature of the title fool you, the article essentially levies blame on much of the hardships throughout the field as the result of and in response to the practices and policies …
Yesterday I took a stab at describing the traditional concept of the “model” orchestra and today I ask whether this model still has validity in 2010; in doing so, I am going to make some sweeping generalizations. Please remember that, to a large extent, all orchestras are local—your orchestra is affected by and responds to the unique challenges and opportunities created by what is going on in your community. Also keep …
More precisely, you should ignore everybody. At least that’s the perspective of author Hugh MacLeod in his book Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. I’m not even all the way through this book yet I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a quick and easy read and based on what I’ve already read, there’s a wealth of insight that can be adopted to benefit everyone in this business (administrators, musicians, …