Orchestra R/Evolution

I'm wrapping up a few days spent at the annual League of American Orchestras Conference. What will stick most in my mind about my time spent here are the two concerts that were presented by the Atlanta Symphony as part of the event. The first concert was Verdi's powerful Requiem, featuring the mind-blowing soprano Christine Brewer and other soloists. The second was the Atlanta School of Composers concert with music by Michael Gandolfi, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon and Christopher Theofanidis.  

Higdon's new concerto, On a Wire, for eighth blackbird was energetic and creative, using instruments in unusual ways. The group continually moved around the stage and the various solo parts kept things interesting. Higdon's description in the program that it's a "high-wire-act-of-a-concerto" is right on.

Theofanidis' Rainbow Body is one of my favorite symphonic works. Golijov's Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra was touching and beautiful, and Gandolfi's The Garden of Cosmic Speculation was filled with musical twists and turns. 

It was one of the best concerts I've been to in awhile - and I go to a lot!

Onto the work.

Russell Willis Taylor of National Arts Strategies gave an impactful keynote address: "There are No Crises, Only Tough Decisions."  A few highlights:

How to Fail in Business Without Really Trying

• Keep fixed costs high and variable costs low.
• Confuse core values and core competencies.
• Believe that growth only means getting bigger and more expensive.
• Never make empirical decisions. Ignore data.
• Create more value for employees than customers.
• Fear new technologies of all kinds.
• Pretend that liquidity doesn’t matter – a lot.
• Blame your customer.
• Pursue transactions rather than relationships.
• Compete rather than collaborate.
• Ignore the global pro-am (professional-amateur) revolution.
• Don’t accept that uncertainty is the price of innovation.

Other tidbits:

• Develop economies of meaning.
• Build institutions of value. 
• Community is *more* than just audience...it talks back, it participates.

Orchestras need to start making tough, intelligent decisions RIGHT NOW, and stop blaming external situations.

Another workshop that I enjoyed was hosted by Robert Spano, Charlie Wade and John Sparrow of the Atlanta Symphony, talking about their "War Room" style of planning and communicating.

Attributes/Benefits of The War Room

• No holding back. Fights and yelling are OK.
• They’ve developed a trust over 10 years working together.
• Process addresses multiple agendas & perspectives. There are multiple goals that HAVE to be met with each programming decision – it’s a jigsaw puzzle – and all views have to be considered.
• Shared process, shared vision & accountability. Collective decisions – everyone owns it.
•  No more “us vs. them” and finger pointing. If something doesn’t sell, or is a fiasco, everyone takes responsibility. “We made this decision together.”
• Up to 12 people (staff representatives – no Board members participate).  Meet for 6-8 hours at a time – every month. When they started this years ago, the meetings lasted for 2 days straight. But now they’ve ironed things out, so they can get it done a bit more efficiently.
• They plan 2-3 years out. They spend some of the time talking about specific “on task” programming ideas, but they think it’s really important to create plenty of time for uninhibited dreaming and visioning.
• They answer the questions, “Is this program artistically satisfying? Does it keep the orchestra and chorus sharp? Does it sell?”
• Charlie Wade said Spano has a minor in marketing.
• It took them 8 years to agree to put on Bach’s St. John’s Passion.
• It’s about putting emotion back into the process (emotions are OK), but taking emotion out as well because they rely on solid research.
• They try to make decisions that advance both the art & the institution.

For more perspectives on the conference, visit the League's Orchestra R/Evolution blog.

Comments

[Brandi]

* Up to 12 people (staff representatives – no Board members participate). Meet for 6-8 hours at a time – every month. When they started this years ago, the meetings lasted for 2 days straight. But now they’ve ironed things out, so they can get it done a bit more efficiently.

- this is particular interesting yet not surprising. So they do NOT involve board or board committee on every programming thought and or decision or am I reading that wrong?

[Holly Hickman]

Yes, that's right. No direct Board involvement in artistic decisions. Spano said he collects input from other sources and Board members are included in that mix. He brings those ideas into the process. From what I gathered, the group includes Pres/CEO, music director, VP of mktg., VP of operations, dev. director, education dir. They didn't mention anything about having an artistic administrator position (so maybe they don't have one?) and also didn't mention that any musicians are involved.