The Perilous Analysis of Symphony Orchestra Finances
March 5, 2012The Flanagan Report has recently been resurrected by its author, Robert Flanagan of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, as a book, recently published and currently being promoted by the Yale University Press. The promotion has not yet paid off in reviews outside our field, but is beginning to cause reactions from industry groups. The […]
Discoveries
May 13, 2011Ever since I arrived in the U.S. in the 1990’s, I have been a subscriber to The New Yorker, which, at its best, is one of the most fascinating reads of the week. The magazine has been the vehicle for … Continue reading →
Why conductors should STFU
February 10, 2011Because otherwise they’re going to say things as dumb as what Leonard Slatkin said today about the DSO strike: …A settlement now would serve both parties well since the DSO’s popular, high-profile music director is the scheduled conductor for next weekend’s concerts. “What’s really cool is that we would be doing Michel Camilo’s Second Piano […]
Bad cases make bad models
October 4, 2010The NY Times has a story on what appears to be the inevitable strike in Detroit scheduled to start Monday: The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has weathered decades of strikes, deficits, criticism over its racial makeup, mediocre concert homes, cuts in state aid and canceled tours. It has always bounced back, rescuing and restoring its beautiful […]
I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends
March 5, 2010The article that follows my comments is from The Minnesota Daily, the newspaper of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis/St. Paul. It’s the first in a series profiling drug use on the UMinn. campus, and they start with music students. Since the readers of Polyphonic.org are familiar with the orchestra world, it will be no surprise […]
Sandow on Ricker on diversity
January 24, 2010Most readers of this blog will know of Greg Sandow, if only for the work that he’s done for Polyphonic. But he’s done a great deal of other stuff, including writing a blog for ArtsJournal.com. He recently did a post on something that Ray Ricker had written for this blog, and it’s worth reading in […]