Blog: Page 67

Friday afternoon was for Symposia – six simultaneous sessions, each repeated once. “The Atlanta Symphony War Room: A New Approach to Collaborative Decision Making” featured Robert Spano, music director, John Sparrow, vice president for orchestra initiative and general manager, and Charlie Wade, vice president of marketing. Again, my notes may not be verbatim but hopefully […]

This should serve as a warning to all of us, even though principal players are possibly more prone to this disorder simply due to the interaction of human nature and hierarchies. Please note that it’s definitely NSFW (not safe for work, although most of us don’t have the problem of having computers at work, of […]

Thursday morning started off with a session about digital media rights, moderated by John Sparrow, VP of Orchestra Initiatives in Atlanta. The panel: Jonathan Brill, Executive VP of Opus 3 Artists; Joe Kluger, Partner at WolfBrown and former President of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Robert Levine, Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony [and a Senior […]

An article in the June 28th edition of the New York Times discussed Michael Kaiser, the advice he gives, and some negative reactions from the field: At a time of many questions in the world of culture, Mr. Kaiser is regarded by many as the man with most of the answers, a miracle worker credited […]

Thursday afternoon’s general session began with a performance by the ASO brass quintet. Jesse Rosen then recounted an experience he had playing bass trombone in the NYU orchestra. He was preparing his part for Brahms’ Requiem and was pleased to see that he had a lot of notes, including a few melodies. At the first […]

Election results from the AFM Convention can be found here.

On Thursday we had a musicians’ session, with Bob Wagner moderating. Bob is the principal bassoon of the New Jersey Symphony, a board member of the League, and former ICSOM rep and Orchestra Committee chair of the NJSO. There were perhaps 15 of us: we talked about a lot of things: I asked about the […]

Orchestra musicians are fortunate that what happens to their union is important enough that they should care about it; most American workers are not so lucky in having a collective voice of any kind. So for those of you who do care about what’s happening in – and to – the AFM, I’m live-blogging the […]

The keynote speaker at the conference opening session on Wednesday, June 16, was Ben Cameron, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Fund. He is the former executive director of Theatre Communications Group. Excerpts from his address follow (he’s a very fast talker so this is not verbatim): According to Bill Moyers, […]