The Future

The League of American Orchestras recently announced their new five-year strategic plan. You can read an executive summary, an abridged version, or the entire plan by clicking here. The summary begins with a quote from Jesse Rosen, President & CEO: This plan was developed in a moment of great possibility. It builds on the momentum […]

A fascinating article was published recently in The Atlantic, which takes a look into the future and considers the possibility that machines could continue to replace more and more of the modern workforce (or reduce the amount of time workers need to work).  It also considers the impacts on leisure time, the arts, and artists. […]

The Guardian recently published an edited version of NY Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert’s 2015 Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture.  In the lecture, Gilbert describes his view of where we are today – how orchestras are doing some serious soul-searching to discover what role they will play in their communities going forward.  Orchestras are trying all […]

In “today’s arts climate,” which is often characterized by tales of diminishing audiences, revenue, and interest, why would anyone start a new orchestra? That is a question that Jennifer Melick considers in an intriguing article in the recent Symphony Magazine.  Melick spotlights eight recent orchestra startups and looks at the goals and creative ideas behind […]

Richard Levine has the distinction (along with the late Henry Shaw) of being the longest-serving editor of Senza Sordino in ICSOM’s history. His thoughts on departing from the post were contained in a long article in the August 2014 edition of the newsletter. Richard has been a friend for a long time, so I will […]

One of the issues at play during the Year of Three Lockouts continues to reverberate around the symphonoblogosphere – the question of pay for substitute and extra musicians, and in particular the reduction in that pay that was part of the Minnesota settlement. Drew McManus called attention to it in a year-in-review post, where he […]

The Danish cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen famously said that “it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Saying what mattered in 2014 is essentially making a prediction about what people in the future will think about our present. But it’s worth trying nonetheless; 2014 was a pretty dramatic year in our business, and merits […]

There was a wonderful review on Slate recently of a book by legendary San Francisco photographer Fred Lyon. The book is called San Francisco: Portrait of a City 1940-1960, and the review included a number of pictures from the book. I grew up south of San Francisco on the campus of Stanford University. My family […]

Yesterday was Veterans Day in the United States. But, in Great Britain, Canada, most of the Commonwealth countries, and several European nations, it’s known by an older name – Armistice Day. And originally it commemorated the end of World War I at 11:00 AM on November 11, 1918. Veterans Day is taken seriously in the […]

If one wishes to contribute to the conversation about how to expand the audience base for American orchestras, then one must talk about what those orchestras are presenting — and right now that’s a taboo subject. The fact is that the discussion about WHAT exactly orchestras are presenting has never taken place. The arbitrary distinction […]