The Future: Page 2

Symphony magazine featured an interesting article about how digital technologies are impacting orchestras. Written by Andy Doe, a media and technology consultant who writes about music at his blog, properdiscord.com, “The Digital Orchestra” takes us from 1994, when the New Zealand Symphony’s principal bassist Dale Gold put up a simple website, to our world of ever-increasing mobile […]

One of my favorite local public radio shows is Old Time Radio Drama on Wisconsin Public Radio. a show that consists of rebroadcasts of classic radio shows from the decades before television. We were driving home from the Twin Cities the day before Labor Day and caught some of the show as we came within […]

Diane Ragsdale is someone who thinks about our business in very different ways than do I; ways that I have sometimes believed were dead wrong and occasionally harmful. But she’s not wrong in her most recent post at ArtsJournal: In their article, Thinking About Civic Leadership, David Chrislip and Edward O’Malley convey that in the […]

While this story doesn’t have an exact analogy in our business, it’s nonetheless revealing of a phenomenon that has begun to appear in our field: The NFL reportedly asked Katy Perry, Rihanna and Coldplay, their top choices to play the 2015 Super Bowl Halftime Show, if they would be willing to pay the league in […]

(Received in my Oggle email inbox; I can’t vouch for its veracity.) The Long (Conn.) Wagner Festival announces its campaign on PrickStarter to fund an exciting new production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and we need your help! This innovative production will be done with a virtual conductor (MaestroData – patent pending) and fully animated CGI […]

Orchestras need to offer compelling reasons for millennials to make live symphonic music a part of their lives.  After all, millennials are the largest generation in human history, and at nearly 90 million people they will very soon make up the vast majority of our orchestras’ stakeholders, constituents, audience, staff members and supporters – and […]

After 50 years, the San Diego Opera is shutting down because… it’s just too hard: The San Diego Opera shocked many in the arts world by announcing it will cease operations at the end of the current season, citing a tough fundraising environment and weak ticket sales. The company’s board voted to shut down rather […]

As many of you know, the Milwaukee Symphony needed to raise a boatload of new money in order to make it through the winter, much less the rest of our season. Contrary to the expectations of many, both within and without the organization, the $5 million campaign succeeded. This is a very significant story for […]

First Minnesota, then Milwaukee, and now … Memphis: Following in the tumultuous footsteps of its Nashville counterpart, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra announced that it is facing a financial crisis that will require “aggressive steps” to complete the current season. “The Memphis Symphony Orchestra celebrates decades of accomplishments thanks to a committed group of patrons, musicians […]

Musicians who have had the privilege and pleasure (dubious, in some cases) of discussing the future of professional orchestras with experts of various stripes are all too familiar with Baumol’s Cost Disease. The best description comes from the economist who came up with the concept, William Baumol: Any economic activity affected by it will tend […]