Shop Talk S02E01: Navigating COVID Era Agreements
Tue, Jul 7, 2021
by Drew McManus
Season 2 comes out of the gate at full speed and my captivating guests include a group of stakeholders from the Toledo Symphony Orchestra who were brave enough to talk about one of my absolute favorite topics: contracts. More to the point we talked about how this orchestra went about navigating the waters of COVID
Shop Talk S01E16: Academia/Pro Divide
Tue, Apr 4, 2021
by Drew McManus
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I ended up where I needed to be.” That’s one of my favorite lines from Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently series and it’s a perfect way to describe my conversation with guests Eric Esparza and Michael Lewanski. We started off talking about the academia/pro divide
Shop Talk S01E15: Musician Injuries Could Soar After COVID: Musician Perspective
Tue, Mar 3, 2021
by Drew McManus
This is the second in a series of podcasts focusing on the topic of what orchestras of all budget size should be considering when planning for post-COVID concert activity. This installment focuses on what musicians think so I invited a trio from each major section of an orchestra: strings, brass, and winds. Guests Jon Boen,
Shop Talk S01E14: Musician Injuries Could Soar After COVID: Artistic Decision Makers Perspective
Tue, Mar 3, 2021
by Drew McManus
This is the first in a series of podcasts focusing on the topic of what orchestras of all budget size should be considering when planning for post-COVID concert activity. This installment gets right to the heart matter by talking to artistic decision makers. Guests Tito Muñoz, Phoenix Symphony Music Director, and Jennifer Arnold, Richmond Symphony
Shop Talk; Last Call: Nothing A Little Property Damage Can’t Fix
Fri, Feb 2, 2021
by Drew McManus
When I invited guests David MacDonald and Sam Merciers to do the show I knew we had to set aside some time to talk about their groundbreaking SoundNotion podcast series, which ran from 2010-2016. It’s the perfect topic for Last Call in that it’s loaded with just the right amount of fun and meta that
Shop Talk S01E13: Composers In Academia
Tue, Feb 2, 2021
by Drew McManus
Guests David MacDonald and Sam Merciers swing by the pod to talk about composers and academia. A fast paced conversation, we cover the intersection of technology and music, how career paths for composers are evolving, ethical concerns around accepting students into composing degree programs, and more. We wrap up the episode with a bit of visioning
Shop Talk S01E12: The Commercial Life
Tue, Jan 1, 2021
by Drew McManus
Today’s episode tackles the taboo topic of arts admins that leave the field for positions in the commercial sector. I’ve often wondered why this carries around so much baggage and why we don’t see more instances of professionals moving between sectors over the span of their career. We jump into those topics along with all
Shop Talk S01E11: Being A Content Creator Before It Was Cool
Tue, Jan 1, 2021
by Drew McManus
Being funny is hard. Learning the array of digital platforms needed for content creation is hard. Doing all of that at the same time with tools from 15 years ago in the classical music field is insane, but that’s exactly what Jeff Curnow did. If doing all of that weren’t enough, Curnow is also the
Shop Talk S01E10: Evolving Past Artistic Elitism
Tue, Dec 12, 2020
by Drew McManus
This episode was an absolutely perfect combination of topic and guests for an episode to come out during a holiday week. At one hour, the conversation is longer than usual but this is the best time for you to spend the time processing everything these two big brains bring to the table on this topic.
Shop Talk S01E09: Get A Handle On Digital Content Production Quality
Tue, Dec 12, 2020
by Drew McManus
The shift from producing live events to becoming a digital content producer is such a daunting task that some orchestras opt for not even trying. Among the biggest challenges is simply getting started and that’s what today’s podcast is all about. I asked two professionals to take part in the discussion and bring perspectives from
