American symphony orchestras: talent vs management - my take

[swillafew]

I joined the board of an all volunteer orchestra with a paid music director and two part time staffers. The concerts are held in a rented hall at the local college, and the ticket prices are moderate. Even when the musicians work for nothing, the money is very tight.

The musicians play very well under the circumstances. The patrons love it, almost 1 percent of the population.

[royjohn]

bloke wrote:

I seriously doubt that there are many (with thirty services or so) who will gross over $3K from playing in that orchestra this year.

bloke, are you sure you have the math right? That would be $100 per service, and that doesn't include any rehearsal...

As an aside, when you can be as cogent, eloquent and intelligent as you are in this thread, why is it necessary to resort regularly to photos of outhouses, menus and beer waitresses?

[Mark]

bloke wrote:

I seriously doubt that there are many (with thirty services or so) who will gross over $3K from playing in that orchestra this year.

bloke, are you sure you have the math right? That would be $100 per service, and that doesn't include any rehearsal...

As an aside, when you can be as cogent, eloquent and intelligent as you are in this thread, why is it necessary to resort regularly to photos of outhouses, menus and beer waitresses?

A rehearsal is a service and, even though I don't know how bloke does math, 30 services x $100 per service = $3,000.

[Three Valves]

...why is it necessary to resort regularly to photos of outhouses, menus and beer waitresses?

Where?? Where??

[Mark]

... why is it necessary to resort to photos of ... beer waitresses?

How dare you? They are maidens, beer maidens.

[royjohn]

bloke,
It's not the humor I object to, it's the disrespect. Humor is great, but when people are having a serious discussion and you come in with outhouses and fart noises, I think it's demeaning of others.

[royjohn]

bloke,
I'm well aware that you apparently view some of mine and others' posts as ridiculous and respond with derision. Perhaps I view some of yours as ridiculous, too, perhaps not. Pardon me for stating the obvious, but folks, including you, will say and do things on line in a forum which I doubt that they would do in person. I just think it's sad that someone so knowledgeable and respected in so many ways would need to go this route.

I'm not averse to humor and have found some of yours funny, but not when it's used to put down other folks' opinions. And I don't feel status within this community confers any immunity in this regard.

[Three Valves]

...Fortunately, *I think he likes me...irreverence included ).

It's all part of the great big lovable package!!

[hup_d_dup]

Have you ever noticed that there's a little "foe" button that you can click, whereby all of my posts would be hidden from your view, or has curiosity got the best of you?

This isn't a good solution because it can render subsequent remarks unintelligible.

One thing that irks me is when I read "I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but this is what I think." An alternate way to express this would be "I am deliberately ignorant, but you should read what I have to say anyway."

Hup

[Biggs]

this thread has everything

[Three Valves]

this thread has everything

NOW it has everything.

[Biggs]

Lest anyone think this thread is too focused on the low art of plumbing rather than the high art of music:

[Three Valves]

That's adorable!!

But backwards.

It's the Government that's sucking off of you!!

Here's an interesting factoid about contemporary policing: In 2014, for the first time ever, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than burglars did. Martin Armstrong pointed this out at his blog, Armstrong Economics, last week.

Officers can take cash and property from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime — yes, really! — through the highly controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture. Last year, according to the Institute for Justice, the Treasury and Justice departments deposited more than $5 billion into their respective asset forfeiture funds. That same year, the FBI reports that burglary losses topped out at $3.5 billion.

Armstrong claims that "the police are now taking more assets than the criminals," but this isn't exactly right: The FBI also tracks property losses from larceny and theft, in addition to plain ol' burglary. If you add up all the property stolen in 2014, from burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft and other means, you arrive at roughly $12.3 billion, according to the FBI. That's more than double the federal asset forfeiture haul.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... last-year/" target="_blank" target="_blank

[bisontuba]

"No."

"No" what? You do school work, yes? They pay you, yes? Your business is "busy" because of them, yes?

To really stand by your principles, you should refuse all public school related work and sales from now on. No more military sales either.



Yeah, reductio ad absurdum, of course...

Truth

[ken k]

I'd be glad for the National Endowment for the Arts to stop tossing chicken feed to American symphony orchestras if cities/counties/states would also stop raping their citizens in sales and property taxes to build stadiums and arenas for football and basketball for-profit entertainment corporations - as well as for states-sponsored/funded minor league football and basketball leagues.

I could not agree with anything more than this.

[Watchman]

Finally,
Have you ever noticed that there's a little "foe" button that you can click, whereby all of my posts would be hidden from your view, or has curiosity got the best of you?

Doing that would cause half of tubenet to disappear!

[Frank Byrne]

Regarding the "good old days" of American orchestras, here is some documented historical perspective:

ABRAHAM CHASINS: Leopold Stokowski – A Profile
Hawthorn Books © 1979 - Pages 27-28
“In 1907 the board of directors [of the Cincinnati Symphony] announced that no effort would be made to maintain the orchestra, because of lack of public interest and support….At the termination of the 1907-1908 symphonic season, the board reconvened for an evaluation of the year. ‘Although the orchestra reduced its ticket prices for the symphony season, only sixteen hundred season tickets were sold…25 percent fewer than the previous season,’ the head of the board stated, ‘the financial situation of the country was possibly responsible,’ but equally relevant was ‘the lack of interest in an undertaking which aroused no feeling of local pride and enthusiasm’.”

GEORGE R. MAREK: Toscanini
Athenium Books © 1975 - Page 220
[note: in 1937 NBC reached an agreement with Arturo Toscanini to come to the United States to conduct an orchestra in weekly radio broadcasts. At that time, Toscanini was perhaps the most famous classical musician in the world, and this plan was conceived by David Sarnoff, head of NBC and RCA]
“Sarnoff’s decision was a brave and admirable one, all the braver because neither the bankers, nor the stockholders to whom he was responsible, not his executives at NBC were in accord with it. The boys at NBC thought it sheer madness to fill and hour and a half of time with ‘that long-hair stuff nobody wants,’ a program no sponsor would consider. G. Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company, then one of the largest advertisers on NBC, said to Sarnoff, ‘You know what I’d do if I were a major stockholder in your company? I’d fire you! I’d fire you for wasting money on classical music in a mass medium’.”

Several points to ponder:
1) It has always been difficult, even back in the "good old days"
2) Making an orchestra successful today is even more difficult and complex than you think. Not for amateurs nor the faint of heart.
3) Labor/management strife is NOT inevitable. There is a better way.

I run a successful American orchestra and have huge respect for the talented, dedicated people who make the music, those in administration, and the generous volunteers who populate our boards. If people can move beyond "talent VS. management" to "talent WITH management," it's a great place to start.

[UDELBR]

If people can move beyond "talent VS. management" to "talent WITH management," it's a great place to start.

I played for years in a foreign orchestra where this was the operating principle. The euphemism "social partners" was cooked up to describe the mgmt/players' relationship. Ultimately, all it meant was that the 'union' (such that it was) granted every single request management had without question. It was scandalous. I'm afraid the relationship is meant to be adversarial.

(sidebar): It also didn't help that 85% of the orchestra's budget came straight from govt. subsidies; an annual, guaranteed "gravy train" that ran for decades. Since there was virtually no chance this would ever be cut, program directors created seasons that no-one would ever want to attend, because it was ugly, unlistenable, supposedly "important" music. Many times there were more people on stage than in the hall. The voters finally found their voices and slashed the subsidy.

There's a moral in there somewhere.

[Rick Denney]

"No."

"No" what? You do school work, yes? They pay you, yes? Your business is "busy" because of them, yes?

To really stand by your principles, you should refuse all public school related work and sales from now on. No more military sales either.



Yeah, reductio ad absurdum, of course...

The question of whether a program should not be undertaken or subsidized by government is completely unrelated to the question of whether those who carry out those possibly unnecessary programs do it competently or not. The first is a policy question (in government, undertaken by the legislative branch, who is usually responsible for passing bills that create programs), and the second is a management question (in government, the responsibility of the executive branch). There are many programs in government that I oppose, but when they are well-run, I applaud those who do so. Running a program poorly purposely to undermine support for it should get any government employee or contractor fired forthwith. That is not their prerogative. I don't suppose that Bloke would advocate that approach.

Rick "not reductio ad absurdum at all, and more likely non-sequitur" Denney

[Rick Denney]

On the original topic, some observations from those for-profit corporations whose management skills we might admire:

1. The people who bring in sales make more money, by far, than the people who make the product they are selling. There is a reason for this: Selling is hard. It's even harder to solicit donations successfully than it is to make world-class music, and even less likely to be something one can learn in school.

2. People in sales have two assets: Sales ability (which is a combination of talent and personality that occurs about as rarely as first-quality musical abilities--and musicians don't necessarily require the personality). And a prospect list--connections they possess or can develop of potential buyers of whatever they are selling. Even if there are musicians who have natural sales abilities, and there probably are in any group of 65 people, it is not likely that they will have a decent prospect list. That world-class oboist won't know the key little old ladies in the Junior League, or the big business owners in the area who are likely to support such causes. An orchestra is not competing for donations for those who have already decided to give to a musical ensemble, let alone a classical musical ensemble. Many of their prospects haven't decided whether their donation should go to arts or to wounded vets, feed-the-poor programs, churches of their choosing, animal rights, or whatever. This would be the biggest issue with Bloke's model. This is also the reason why stars sign contracts with managers--presumably the managers already know the prospects--record-company executives, radio station program directors, etc., etc.

3. Non-profit corporations work for the salaries of their staff. For-profit corporations work for the salaries of their staff, plus a small add-on for the stockholders. (Sometimes it's the other way around.) Too many non-profits think of themselves as government, providing legislatively mandated services, where the measure is not fiscal sustainability, but service outcomes. (Sometimes, government agencies purposely obscure those measures for obvious reasons, but that's another story.)

4. 20% of any given sales force produces 80% of the sales.

5. 1 in 5 CEOs in any really challenging industry is good enough to last more than 2 or 3 years. No, that is not an official statistic, but that's the way it seems to me. What this means to me is that a self-run orchestra probably won't be any less likely to have real executive skill than one with a professional manager, though both models will have exceptions.

6. Sales solicits three kinds of fiscal support for a non-profit: Operating funds, sustaining funds, and capital funds. In an orchestra, sustaining funds come from endowments and long-term public-sector support. Operating funds come from ticket sales--a different sales effort. Not many orchestras use much in the way of capital funds.

Rick "noting that a number of government contractors are non-profits, not that you could tell by looking at how they operate" Denney