Adaptistration

Copland Went Under The Shirt But Over The Bra?

In case you missed it, classical music's new poster boy, Alex Ross (sorry Dudamel), took one small step for a classical music critic but one giant leap for classical music when he appeared as a featured guest on the wildly popular Colbert Report. According to Alex the experience "felt like being the nerd in high school all over again" but I think you'll agree the segment is great fun to watch. It has been a real pleasure to see Alex's book make as big of a splash as it has, not just within our cloistered universe but the mainstream cultural consciousness. Take a moment to watch to watch the clip before Comedy Central pulls the plug. For those stopping by for the first installment of the "How To Connect With New Media" series, please accept my sincere apologies but if there's anything out there worth bumping for, it's Alex Ross on the Colbert Report. In the meantime, I have received a number of great emails from folks suggesting what they want to see covered in the "How To Connect With New Media" series, if you haven't written in yet, it isn't too late.

UPDATE: Comedy Central's embedded video clip of the interview has been up and down today without any real pattern. If it isn't working for you at any point, try again later or visit the source page here. Sorry for any inconvenience.

How To Connect With New Media: An Introduction

This June, I have the honor of serving as a speaker in one of the National Performing Arts Convention’s breakout sessions titled The Online Salon Movement. The session’s description promotes the event as a wide ranging commentary and discussion on how performing arts organizations can interact with new forms of media and the public at large. “At a time when more traditional media outlets continue to shrink arts coverage, a wide variety of passionate bloggers writing about all of the performing arts have developed an audience of millions of readers and have challenged the critical paradigm by building a new dialogue about the arts.” I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the state in which new media exists and it got me thinking about how orchestras can enhance that interaction by refining how they reach out to these diverse outlets. To that end, I’ve come up with this series of articles to help orchestras identify, contact, and maintain relationships with new media…

When An Academic Exercise Becomes Reality

During the beginning of November, 2006 I had the pleasure of conducting a mock negotiation exercise with the MBA students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Bolz Center for Arts Administration program. That exercise had the future arts administrator's playing the role of orchestra musicians who were presented with a bargaining proposal from management that called for a 35 percent reduction in expenditures. Although the details of that exercise are fascinating to explore, the real meat came in the form of how some of the students interpreted the scenario…

A Conductor’s View Of The Orchestra: Junichi Hirokami

Given the fact that the Columbus Symphony Orchestra is currently considering drastic cuts to the organization's budget and numbers of full time musicians, it is poignant to hear about how the orchestra's Music Director, Junichi Hirokami, feels about the musicians and the musical product they produce. It also provides some insight as to why he has publicly stated that any downsizing of the orchestra would be 'catastrophic'. By chance Hirokami had a business meeting with Mr. Tamotsu Shinotsuka, the Consul General of Japan from Detroit, on the same day the Columbus Symphony board of director's announced a proposed 25 percent budget reduction. The following is a transcription of Hirokami's description of what an orchestra is and how the musicians and conductor function within that environment…

Strategic Planning Poll Results

This week's Adaptistration poll on the value of artistic stakeholder input on an orchestra's strategic planning process produced results that were both intriguing and not the least bit surprising…

Examining Dynamic Reactions At Columbus

Although the news is barely one week old, patron reaction to the proposed budget cuts at the Columbus Symphony Orchestra have been intriguing. Sources for public response include the Columbus Dispatch, The Cincinnati Enquirer, and several blogs and social networking groups. Typically, community response includes a small amount of very opinionated voices on both sides of issues with the bulk of individuals falling somewhere in-between. However, since the issue broke last week, the overwhelming majority of voices seem to be speaking out against the proposed cuts…

An Adaptistration Poll: Strategic Planning

How important do you think it is for a strategic planning process to include input from the organization’s artistic stakeholders, (conductors and ensemble musicians)? Should the board determine financial prospects first and then allow voices from the artistic stakeholders to offer input in the planning process? Is it appropriate for artistic stakeholders to express public dissatisfaction with a strategic plan? Weigh in on these issues with today’s Adaptistration poll on strategic planning…

Back To The Future In Columbus

The nice thing about getting old is history makes a nice cushion to fall on. That's exactly the case here at Adaptistration when it comes to recent events at the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Going back to 2004 when the Columbus Symphony Orchestra had their last negotiation (a reopener), the organization was asking musicians for substantial cuts due to revenue shortfalls resulting from, among other problems, severe accounting errors…

Junichi Hirokami: Leading From The Front In Columbus

Before everyone starts to draw parallels between recent events at the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and what is unfolding at the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, I think it is worthwhile to point out one significant distinction with regard to the approach each orchestra's respective music director has opted to pursue following a series of proposed budget cuts…

Onto The Business Of Fundraising In Jacksonville

The Jacksonville Symphony Association (JSA) and the Jacksonville Symphony Players' Association (JSPA) distributed a joint press release today announcing details for the Radiothon fundraising event scheduled this weekend…

Progress On The Internal Service Project - Interlochen Index

Although it is slow going, progress is being made at Adaptistration's Internal Service Project which is designed to fix all of the broken links and missing graphics that resulted from switching to an independent server in October, 2007. One advancement recently completed was creating a separate index for and restoring all 24 of the articles about the Interlochen Center for the Arts…

An Emotional Bear Trap

Joe Patti, my Inside The Arts blogging cohort, posted an absolutely fascinating piece on 1/15/2008 which recounts his recent experience attending the "Learning to Lead" session at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Annual Conference. Although the post is relatively short, it is chocked full of meaningful observations into the root of negative learning cycles endured by nonprofit cultural organizations…

BREAKING NEWS: Tentative Agreement in Jacksonville

The musicians of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra released the following press release at 2:19PM CT announcing a tentative agreement which provides for Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra concerts to resume this week.
(UPDATE: The Jacksonville Symphony Association distributed a press release about approximately 90 minutes after the musician release. It is included at the end of this post)...

We Value Your Option (unless it means changing our plans)

Robert Levine, president of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) chairman emeritus, former editor of Senza Sordino (ICSOM's newsletter), and principal violist of the Milwaukee Symphony [Robert must have an industrial sized business card], posted an intriguing article at his blog about the Jacksonville Symphony negotiations. In his post, Robert compares current events in Jacksonville with his own experiences in Milwaukee when faced with a refusal to move from a pre-set final offer at the onset of negotiations…

Getting Ahead Of The Relevancy Curve

It isn't as though I keep up with Hollywood award shows but it was infinitely amusing to read that the Golden Globe awards were reduced to nothing more than a prolonged press conference due to the Writers Guild of America strike. At the same time, the topic made me think about awards in general and since I was also thinking about blog topics at the same time, it inspired me to go searching for blog awards...

Rhetoric On The Rise In Jacksonville

After a brief hiatus following the holiday season, the Jacksonville Symphony Association (JSA) and Jacksonville Symphony Players' Association (JSPA) have resumed their respective public relations campaigns via the nine week long lockout. First up, was an opinion piece published on 1/8/2008 by the Florida Times-Union written by JSA past board chair and current board member, Steven T. Halverson…

Vote Early, Vote Often…

The 2008 Weblog Awards ("The Bloggies") closes midnight Friday the 11th of January (today!). If you think Adaptistration has been a worthwhile resource throughout 2007...

Free For The Taking

If you haven't been following Jason Heath's "A Week in the Life" series of posts at Arts Addict then you're missing out. I've written it before and I'll write it again; Jason's ability to present an unfiltered, honest look at the life of a gig musician is simply unparalleled. The real bonus here is that what he writes is equally useful for managers as well as musicians…

Make A Fortune In Virtual Cash

Do you enjoy the fictional world of the fantasy blog stock market? If so, you're likely involved with one of the most entertaining and longest running offerings available, Blogshares.com. The self described market where players invest fictional dollars on shares in blogs has been up and running since 2003 and now attracts more than 50,000 visitors per month. Regardless if you have an account or not, I have a hot tip that will likely pay off ten-fold in the coming months…

It’s Time For Some Cross-Blogging

One of the most appealing aspects of blogging is the ability to riff on an idea or topic initiated by a blogging colleague. To a large extent, that's one of the reasons Inside The Arts was established. Locating several cultural blogs in closely aligned fields of performing arts at one hub will hopefully increase the likelihood of cross-blogging discussions. Ideally, cross-blogging topics will gain enough mass to attract some of the other heavenly bodies in the greater cultural blogging universe. Consequently, I wanted to take a post to weigh in on some of the fascinating topics making the rounds through my Inside The Arts blogging neighbors…

They Pay You For Something That’s Fun?

In her recent article at The Partial Observer, Holly Mulcahy examines why she feels it is time to stop feeling guilty for being a musician. The piece reminded me of the wonderful Take A Friend To Orchestra contribution from Jim Palermo which starts off with the line “A few years ago it dawned on me that I was becoming apologetic about working in the arts.” Jim went on to say that he has vowed to stop apologizing for loving and understanding classical music and Holly’s piece adopts a similar tone but from the perspective of a performer…

Inside The Arts Welcomes Frank Almond

Inside The Arts continues to grow and today marks the addition of the newest column: non divisi; Frank Almond writes a column instead of practicing. A column differs from a blog in that blogs publish several articles per week whereas columns publish less frequently. As Frank states in his About page, "For the time being, I'll post something the first Monday of every month, maybe more often if circumstances warrant, or if I'm just trying to avoid practicing." Much like Inside The Art's other column, non divisi is something entirely new and unique among the growing number of online culture sites. Frank captures this idea best in the opening of his inaugural post…

Who Owns A Symphony Orchestra?

Earlier this week, Paul Alter submitted a comment and asked "Who owns a symphony orchestra?" Although the simplistic answer to that question is "no one" perhaps a more complete answer is to look at ownership from the perspective of control. Within that context, Paul's question is much easier to answer…

Concert Cancellations And New Fundraising In Jacksonville

In an email message from 1/2/2008, Jacksonville Symphony Association (JSA) Executive Director, Alan Hopper, confirmed that the message appearing on the jsomusicians.org message board on 12/28/2007 was written by JSA executive board member Tom Beames (details of that letter are available here). Hopper also confirmed that personalized versions of the letter have been distributed to some individuals; however, there was no response to questions about whether or not Tom Beames plans to step down from the JSA board or if the board will ask him to resign…

State Of The Blog: Adaptistration Turns Four

Thanks to a steady stream of regular readers and in influx of newcomers, Adaptistration's 2007 traffic reached record-breaking levels…

Recent Developments in Jacksonville

The "Jacksonville Emails" debacle moved to a new phase over the weekend when a user identifying himself as "Henson Markham" posted what he identified as "Tom Beames letter to the JSA Board" at the jsomusicians.org guestbook. Conversely, the Jacksonville Symphony Association (JSA) has acknowledged that they will release any official response written by or on the behalf of JSA Executive Board member Tom Beames to his email message from 12/19/2007 as soon as it is available but to date, no such response has been issued. Nevertheless, the letter attributed to Mr. Beames posted late Friday evening, 12/28/2007 was apologetic for what it defined as "misunderstandings" of "typographical" and "missed context" nature. The letter closes with the author stating "For even a single member of this orchestra to see me as anything but an active, grateful, well-intended volunteer trying to make our community and its citizens all that is possible, is unacceptable. I implore you to accept the remorse of an impassioned but at times clumsy friend that is subject to mistakes and foils like anyone else". Three days after the letter allegedly written by Mr. Beames, the JSA Board of directors cancelled the musician's health care coverage…