Lots to Do, But It CAN Be Done
When the announcement went out in 2019 that I decided to move on from the California Symphony to make a broader impact beyond one organization before leading another classical music institution, the floodgates opened in the best way. A few months later, all our work changed more than we ever thought possible as the coronavirus abruptly halted business as we knew it, opening up new questions and challenges for our organizations and field.
Despite this awful, turbulent time, it’s simultaneously been stimulating, interesting, and ultimately an honor to partner with you, now 50 clients later — a number I think…
The Largest Orchestras are Run by 67% Men
In honor of Women’s History Month, I’m sharing data I’ve been sitting on for a while. It’s not particularly surprising; it more confirms what some people already intuitively thought was true, which is that for orchestras, the larger the budget, the greater the gender disparity among chief executives. Put differently, smaller budget orchestras are more likely led by women and larger budgets more by men.
All of this came up last summer after a nice industry conference session on gender equity in the field when a few attendees took to Twitter asking for concrete data on gender breakdown among…
Five Steps to Create a New Normal
With a vaccine rollout underway, when fall of 2021 arrives orchestras will likely have an opportunity we won’t then have had for a year and a half: the opportunity to have a full live performance season. And while there is good reason to believe that there will be a spike in audience demand at first (get me out of my house, please!), after that initial surge in socially distanced, mask-wearing attendance, there is not good reason to believe the wave will continue without a change to the business model. Pre-pandemic, orchestra attendance was declining at an average rate of 2.8%…
Titles for Arts Administrators
We have made it to the end of 2020. While this year is undeniably awful for so many reasons, the disruption it caused to literally everything made me all the more curious and eager to read and consume new ideas. The arts and culture sector was already ripe for change before the pandemic, and now we have an opportunity to do just that because we have no other choice but to innovate, adapt, and evolve.
The titles below helped me consider a future that looks renewed and healthier than our industry’s past, as well as helped me formulate business plans…
Guidelines for Safe Reopening Benefit All of Us
This post is in partnership with Californians for the Arts, the Association of California Symphony Orchestras, California Presenters, and the California Association of Museums.
Not a Zero-Sum Game, Part 3 of 3
Every arts organization is at a crossroads now. Do we do everything we can to return to business as soon as possible, or do we double down on planning for a future that looks different than our past? Do we restore the way things were pre-covid or embrace the opportunity for change the pandemic has brought?
This post, part 3 of 3 in this series (here are parts one and two), summarizes a dialogue I had with a group of artists and administrators this summer. We vowed to openly discuss issues normally reserved for behind closed doors, private conversations, and…
Not a Zero-Sum Game, Part 2 of 3
Beyond the pandemic fallout of ubiquitous concert cancellations, halt of ticket revenue, and loss of work for artists and administrators, the systemic issues within classical music that predate coronavirus have been amplified over the last several months. Part one of this series describes the need to recalibrate — or reframe — how we approach the false dichotomies in our work, and this post, part two of three, describes how we can work collaboratively to create stronger organizations than we had before.
We can reject the notions that we must debate digital offerings versus live performance as if the two are…
Not a Zero-Sum Game, Part 1 of 3
The pandemic isn’t solely responsible for upending classical music. Rather, the pandemic has exacerbated and exposed symptoms and problems that already existed: limited revenue streams, narrow customer base, inadequate cash reserves, and a lagging digital presence. As an industry and at our individual organizations, we have an opportunity before us to recalibrate how we view our work, to leverage this inflection point to build a future that looks different — fuller and more robust — than before.
To explore what this fuller future might look like, the setup was simple: invite accomplished artists and administrators to openly discuss issues normally…
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
As I scrolled through social media this weekend, I wavered back and forth on wanting to add my voice to the outpouring of support (to be silent is to be complicit, right?), yet trying to reconcile the weight of coming up short (words fail right now, talk is cheap, and what’s one more white voice joining a chorus of people who are feeling a sadness that black Americans have been experiencing some version of their whole lives?). This is a turning point in our culture, I said to myself. …
Books for Arts Administrators
When people ask me where I draw inspiration, my answer is consistently from outside the arts. It’s our job in this field to not be insular, to force ourselves to look outside our industry and raise our eyes and ears to what’s working for leaders and innovators across all sectors. There’s a lot to learn about ourselves personally, as well as about how to better lead and serve our institutions. …
Aubrey Bergauer
“The Steve Jobs of classical music.” (Observer) Working to change the narrative for this business.
