Another 10 Year Anniversary & Muñoz Gets Phoenix

I want to take a moment to highlight the 10 year anniversary for Joe Patti’s excellent culture blog, Butts In The Seats; Musings on Practical Solutions For Arts Management. I was enormously pleased when Joe decided to include his blog among the Inside The Arts ranks and with nearly 1,500 posts it is one of the longest running culture blogs around.

ADAPTISTRATION-GUY-081If you aren’t already familiar with Joe’s blog, stop by and set aside a meaningful amount of time to go through everything Butts In The Seats has to offer.

Phoenix Symphony Taps Muñoz As New MD

In case you missed the announcement over the weekend, the Phoenix Symphony recently announced conductor Tito Muñoz will serve as their new music director beginning with the 2014-15 season. You can read more in an article by Kerry Lengel in the 2/20/2014 edition of the Arizona Republic as well as an article by Michael Cooper in the 2/21/2014 edition of The New York Times.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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