Blog

Are orchestras like newspapers?

Anne Midgette, Washington Post music critic, has her own take on the Michael Kaiser article of a few days ago: Michael Kaiser, in the Huffington Post, has this week addressed the elephant in the living room: some orchestras are not going to make it. There are striking parallels between orchestras and newspapers in this recession.[…]

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Being the Best that We Can Be

Every year I look down in late August when we start our season, and by the time I am able to look up and catch a breather, it’s almost the end of October.  And every year I say it’s not going to happen this year, that I will take more time to get out of[…]

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A Wizard experiment in Oz

An orchestra in Australia is doing some interesting things in terms of trying to sell tickets: apparently they don’t: [Orchestra Victoria’s] evolution has made it unique in Australia. It was established as a theatre orchestra by the Elizabethan Trust in 1969 but while its Sydney counterpart, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, spends all its[…]

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Of business models and the breakage thereof

Every crisis creates its own buzz phrases. Hurricane Lehmann and the resulting economic meltdown has created a suitably scary one for our industry, and I’m hearing it more and more: “the model is broken.” The latest manifestation is an article by Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, on the Huffington Post[…]

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Changing US Demographics and Classical Music

Here’s a personal observation and some thoughts. When my wife and I visited the Netherlands a couple of years ago we were fortunate, at Judy’s persistence, to get tickets to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. We started a couple of months early trying to book tickets online, but they were “sold out.” Knowing that[…]

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From under a rock emerges A Strategy

The announcement on Friday of the previous weeks’ vote by the Honolulu Symphony board to file for bankruptcy included this charming piece of thinking: “Given its current and projected financial status, the Society cannot continue to sustain a 64-piece orchestra,” Mechling said. “We cannot continue with business as usual”… “In order to do this we[…]

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iWHAT?!

A recent post by David Pogue on his NYT blog highlighted some medically-oriented iPhone apps. Though not designed with musicians in mind, this free app might be very helpful to musicians of all kinds in monitoring the state of their hearing: uHear™ is a unique hearing loss screening test application available for download to the[…]

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Dept. of Homeland Obviousness update

If the person who wrote the headline for this article went to J-school, they should get a complete refund on their tuition: Honolulu Symphony Bankruptcy Disturbs Musicians Musicians Fear Uncertain Future HONOLULU — News of the Honolulu Symphony’s bankruptcy announcement is sending shock waves through the community.

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Honolulu Symphony files for moral bankruptcy

The truly shocking part of this announcement is the fourth paragraph (italicized): The Honolulu Symphony Society Board of Directors announced on Friday that it has decided to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The announcement comes after more than a week of uncertainty. The chairman of the Honolulu Symphony’s board of directors told KITV, that as[…]

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1
Are orchestras like newspapers?
2
Being the Best that We Can Be
3
What Opera Needs is More Drums
4
A Wizard experiment in Oz
5
Of business models and the breakage thereof
6
Changing US Demographics and Classical Music
7
From under a rock emerges A Strategy
8
iWHAT?!
9
Dept. of Homeland Obviousness update
10
Honolulu Symphony files for moral bankruptcy