Archive - 2012

1
Gary Race on How To Prepare an Educational/Outreach Presentation
2
So, who’s your funder? And other crazy questions…
3
Can an Alien Save the American Orchestra? –Thoughts on “The New Model”
4
Are Three Legs Appropriate? Or Even Sufficient?
5
The Riot Stuff
6
Why They’re Not Smiling: Stress and Discontent in the Orchestra Workplace
7
About that $6 million deficit…
8
NLRB happens
9
Why no impasse in Minnesota?
10
Life and Work in Symphony Orchestras

Gary Race on How To Prepare an Educational/Outreach Presentation

Back in the 1990s, Gary Race worked with the National Symphony’s Education Department to assist NSO musicians in devising quality educational and outreach programs for in-school and community performances.  In 2006, Polyphonic asked Gary to write a series of articles, explaining his approach to creating innovative, interesting and informative presentations. Gary’s set of articles, “Getting[…]

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So, who’s your funder? And other crazy questions…

Question: What have you learned in the past few years about about obtaining sustainable funding? In this monthly blog, I’ll start with a question, and take on issues of leadership and relevance in advancing the cause of music and social change.  I’d like to start with an example I’m very familiar with – the model[…]

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Can an Alien Save the American Orchestra? –Thoughts on “The New Model”

American Orchestras, so we are told over and over again, are on life-support. Audiences are aging or dwindling; “operating expenses” (often a euphemism for “musician salaries and benefits”) are rising; fundraising has reached a ceiling; Apple and Amazon exist; people just aren’t as “educated” about classical music as they were; public music education programs are[…]

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Are Three Legs Appropriate? Or Even Sufficient?

Henry Fogel was one of the best orchestra CEOs of the past thirty years, and his understanding of the intricacies of orchestral governance is profound. I learned a great deal from this article, even though I didn’t agree with all of his conclusions, and I think his insights about how our institutions function still ring[…]

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The Riot Stuff

  Orchestras should raise their voices to be heard amid the din of noisy modern culture and promote themselves as socially conscious public institutions. They need to embrace a more inclusive posture in society, and demonstrate an identity more nuanced than silent anonymous conservative tuxedo-clad white male.  While the price of participating in American culture[…]

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Why They’re Not Smiling: Stress and Discontent in the Orchestra Workplace

If you checked out my previous Editors Choice blog, you will remember that the research of Richard Hackman revealed that orchestral musicians are not so happy in their jobs. Quoting Hackman, It’s a bit ironic. Players in symphony orchestras are near the top of their professions—they are among the handful of talented musicians who actually[…]

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About that $6 million deficit…

The Minneapolis StarTribune is reporting that, at tomorrow’s annual meeting of the Minnesota Orchestral Association, the board will report a deficit for 2011-12 of $6 million on expenses of around $31 million. That’s a pretty impressive number, not least because it’s so much worse than the previous three years and yet so close to the[…]

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NLRB happens

In a nice example of synchronicity, the Jacksonville Symphony musicians, with the assistance of their counsel, Liza Medina, proved my point about the dangers of an employer declaring impasse within hours of my having written this post last week by winning a ruling from the NLRB on the subject: There is enough evidence of unfair[…]

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Why no impasse in Minnesota?

One of the continuing mysteries of the Minnesota Orchestra dispute (for me, at least) was why the management chose to lock out its musicians rather than declare impasse and impose its proposal. Drew McManus believes he has an explanation: On the surface, the MOA executive committee’s public angst over the lack of a musician offer[…]

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Life and Work in Symphony Orchestras

In the 1996 Summer issue of The Musical Quarterly [80(2), pp. 194-219], J. Richard Hackman, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and Jutta Allmendinger, a professor of sociology at the University of Munich published a large-scale study of 78 professional symphony orchestras from four nations. Over the years, within the orchestral world, their study[…]

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