Editor’s Choice: Page 4

All of us at Polyphonic.org want to thank you, our readers, for making 2013 a great year!  This past year you joined over 63,000 people who visited Polyphonic.org a total of more than 92,000 times! Below are the top 10 most popular posts of the year from Polyphonic.org based on number of views! #1: Bringing […]

All orchestras want to “stretch” and offer repertoire that challenges both the players and the audience — that strengthens the symphonic art form and moves us into the future. But selling these concerts to our regular patrons can be very challenging. Orchestras with liberal return policies find subscribers giving in their tickets to the “stretch” […]

In 2007 we posted an article entitled, Alias: A New Kind of Ensemble.  Looking back with 20/20 hindsight it can easily seen that Alias was, and still is, part of a trend—a movement among musicians to form “alternative ensembles.” In an effort to understand more about this trend, the Eastman School of Music recently inaugurated […]

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, the phrase “new business model” is far too often used as shorthand for “paying musicians less” – ironic given that paying people less is a very old business model indeed. It’s probably a phrase that should be abandoned simply because it’s been so contaminated. Yet there are […]

A few years back, the Memphis Symphony was suffering a misunderstanding about their operational structure that became known as “the Memphis model.” Musicians around the country were under the impression that Memphis musicians were working in the office as part of their musician contracts — a “service conversion” situation. When I went to investigate, I […]

For this Editor’s Choice I decided to look back at some interviews we recorded in years past. There are some real gems here. The one I chose to feature this time around is a conversation between Paul Boulian and Greg Sandow discussing the economic reality of orchestras. Though it was recorded in February 2009, it […]

In 2009 I attended a New York Philharmonic Young Peoples’ Concert, conducted by my friend and colleague Delta David Gier, and was exceedingly impressed by the quality of the concert — it’s concept, execution, script, dancing, repertoire choices, etc., but mostly by how incredibly good it was. I asked David Gier and Tom Dulack, the […]

My Editor’s Choice for this time around is a look-back to a 2002 article in Harmony by Tina Ward and Robert Wagner.  In it they write about their experiences with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. It’s an inspiring story about a small town orchestra in Finland that, at that time, was making big waves in its […]

In light of the recent settlement of the SPCO’s long lockout, it’s worth revisiting the events of 2003, when the SPCO embarked on a radical departure from past practice regarding institutional governance. Five perspectives are provided; those of the mediators/facilitators, Fred Zenone and Paul Boulian, that of the President and CEO, Bruce Coppock, that of […]

If you have been visiting Polyphonic.org over the past couple of months, you’ve probably seen the announcement of the Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research that has been established as part of the Eastman School of Music’s Institute for Music Leadership. More specifically Center is now part of the Orchestra Musicians Forum and its […]