By now many readers will have read this excellent post by Bernard Holland, distinguished music critic and writer for the New York Times (assuming that the NYT, in their infinite wisdom, will not try to charge you for access). Mr. Holland, in his opus from ’03, has succinctly put forth a very elegant and reasoned argument for why orchestras in this country are going the way of the Dodo. Only one problem – he didn’t go far enough.
Lack of Arts Education, the dispersal of wealth, fracturing of the audience, mis-management….. all these are mentioned in his op-ed piece, and they are all contributors to the decline of the American Orchestra. Yet there are important contributors to the problem who get off scot free from his eagle eye who need to be pinned to the ground. In no particular order: 1) Arts Management companies; 2) Musicians; 3) Conductors.
Ok, that last group got an honorable mention at the end, but really….. do we need Conductor X to be Music Director of 4 orchestras simultaneously? Can you invest, emotionally or monetarily, in a company that’s being run by the CEO of another company with any kind of confidence? Will the Levine/Met/BSO debacle teach us anything? I suspect not, and until Music Directors are chosen on their long-term artistic merits and their willingness to pay attention to one orchestra at a time that part of the industry won’t change.
Which leads to Artist Management companies. They make money off of the chosen few, they push said conductors (and soloists) onto the A list, hype the living bejesus out of them, plaster their photos everywhere, charge ridiculously exorbitant fees for the briefest of appearances, and then pretend they’re doing this business a favor. I recently read Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the first time. God help me, but all I could think of was that if the monster survived he’s probably running a management company in New York City right now. The Über-Management’s exploitation of young artists and B-listers makes the slave trade look borderline ethical.
Which leads to musicians. Ok, a few hard facts – 1) No, your orchestra would not be in tremendously better shape if you were running it. You went to school for music. Knowing how to play your instrument does not give you an understanding of how to run a business; 2) Any rule you have put into your orchestra’s contract that limits access to media in any way is seriously detrimental to your continued livelihood; 3) The orchestra in your town is not there for your benefit. It is there for the benefit of the audience. The audience is paramount and any consideration about anything that does not put the audience first is seriously detrimental to your continued livelihood.
One last thing for everybody – an orchestra is a very personnel-intensive organization. It’s expensive, and if you start adding benefits and everything else the cost/benefit ratio is fairly scary. Any Board Chair, Executive Director, or Musician Rep who advocates, presents, or otherwise condones any contract that squeezes every last penny out of the organization in salaries and benefits without an honest and practical fiscal plan that admits that we are in the non-profit business is doing irreparable damage to whatever institution they claim to serve.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
And when is anyone going to begin scrutinizing the Orchestra League for THEIR part in this little dance? Why are THEY getting off so easy?
Lots of these accusations are floating around, but nothing substantial is backing it up. Over-the-top conspiracy theories might sound good on the cable news outlets but we have yet to see any real evidence, other than Chris Durham’s article (which in my view, paints with a broad brush).
http://www.adaptistration.com/2010/08/06/afm-calls-out-the-league/
An interesting viewpoint but with all due respect, I seriously doubt that ASOL is that nefarious or even that well-organized. Seriously, we need to stop contributing to the madness and take the rhetoric down a notch or two.
This ain’t Watergate.
Bravo Bill! I admire your courage for putting this out there.
As a night-time musician who works in marketing during the day, I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment on musicians who think they can run the show better.
“If I were King, everything would be different” is the popular sentiment.
The reality is that this Emperor has no clothes! Running any business is a very tricky and thankless job. Untrained musicians would only muck it up.
And too, demonizing management in this manner is an outmoded way of thinking. I am highly skeptical of vast ASOL conspiracy theories. It all lacks imagination and is frankly, lazy thinking.
Like it or not, we absolutely need management in order to distance ourselves from the daily business and temperance of making music.
As a lifelong classical music lover and musician (not professional), I applaud your article and the referenced NYT arguments as well.
In my humble opinion, the more fundamental problem is popular disconnection with classical music generally. In that way, I partially agree with the NYT points in that regard. Except I believe this IS the root problem. If we could find a way to actually attract people to classical music — not through education (it can’t be force-fed) but through actually doing something with the music that appeals to the masses, all the other problems would be managed in their order. We can’t start with something unpopular and fix it via the management or administration of it. As my teenage son said one day as I was playing classical music, “why doesn’t it have any words?” This from a boy who’s heard classical music literally his whole life from both parents, it just lacks something for him to connect. Not John Williams or other pops approaches (as wonderful as they are, they’re not the bridge). Something like remixing, quasi-rap-style narration, distributed audience story-telling, some innovative audience participation notion or *something* to change the look and feel of classical music has to happen first. I think if a real bridge were built, people would actually like where it arrives. Classical music just needs an intro band.
Quite brilliantly said. I would only add: boards that invariably rubber stamp the pronouncements of a small clique within the executive committee, overstaffed orchestra administrations, and laughably overpaid executive directors like several…well…you know.
Part of the problem lies in the makeup of boards. One of the well-known objectives of a previous Board President of a major orchestra on the west coast was to purge the board of dissenters. So much for checks and balances.
I agree that the fees paid to A-list conductors and soloists is putting a tremendous drain on the orchestra business’ financial resources, but I don’t think artist management agencies are as much to blame as human economic behaviour is. Audiences want the best performance possible for their ticket dollars, and they are inevitably drawn to a few top-earning performers for this reason, for better or for worse. It is audiences who drive demand for A-list stars. I strongly doubt the reasonably competitive market for soloists and conductors would support an industry-wide agreement to reduce fees.
That being said, I think that the general sense of “ask not what your orchestra can do for you, but what you can do for your orchestra” idea is right on. Let’s hope the next generation of players, conductors and managers keeps that firmly in mind!
it is very similar to this one:
http://thehedonistmaestro.blogspot.com/