Go Big or Go Home?

Michael Kaiser has yet another great blog from his “Arts in Crisis” tour.  Two of Kaiser’s basic premises are to be creative in programming in ways that directly connect to the community and to plan far into the future.  They are both things that I philosophically agree with, but often for small organizations, they’re so busy trying to make sure that the current projects are fully funded and all the fires are put out that getting ahead of the game becomes tough.

He often talks about making sure that the programming is marketed well, but one of the things that Kaiser has not addressed is how you go about figuring out the right programming for your city.  It’s in some ways easy to say that an arts organization should be unique and creative for the city.  (Something I think that Kaiser is 100% correct on).  You cannot program in New York for the New York Philharmonic and be unique for that organization in the same way you program for the Colorado Springs Philharmonic and be unique for that organization.  I truly believe that you can program a lot of the same repertoire for each, but you handle them and build to them in different ways because the communities are different.

This is one reason the Artistic Director must get to know the community and must figure out how they are going to be unique and interesting in ways that appeal to the community.  The easy sell is to simply do more pops concerts and turn into an easy listening organization, but I cannot truly believe that this meets the mission of most arts organizations.  We can’t turn this into a race to the bottom.  If we do, we lose the social good we bring to our cities.  Now before people start bashing me for being ant-pops and anti-fun, I have to say I LOVE pops concerts.  I like a variety of music.  I just think that we can’t lose sight of the “art music” we do simply to make ends meet through doing more easy listening stuff.

Again, this puts a lot of the burden on the Artistic Director/Artistic Planner for the organization, which I think as an artistic director/conductor-type is a good thing.  The farther ahead of the game you can program, the easier it is to build the infrastructure necessary for a big project.  For Opera Vista, we are finally at the point of being able to do a big project.  (Mark October 15, 2010 in your calendars – seriously, we have a live elephant).

It’s taken four years of building infrastructure in the organization for us to be able to take this huge artistic (and financial – as my board is wont to remind me) risk.  We’ve reached the point as an organization that it’s almost necessary for us to shed the cocoon and fly.  Because of next season’s out of the box programming, we’ve won the trust of a wonderful PR company that is helping us with our branding.  Luckily by programming an opera that is so unique and exciting (did I mention the elephant and the Bollywood-esque dancers), we’ve picked up our first major corporate sponsor.  Stay tuned.  All this information will be on the website soon!  (And the website will be entirely new!)  So, Mr. Kaiser, you’re 100% right – it’s not just for the large organizations!

The Off-Season

My apologies for being AWOL so long.  Last season was truly a tough one in a lot of ways.  Running a very young arts organization in the midst of a recession was mentally and physically exhausting – not only for me, but for everyone involved in the company, as well as those around me.

As usual, Michael Kaiser has a great take on this last season and the toll it took on arts administrators.  (One of the most interesting aspects to my job with Opera Vista is that I’m not only the Artistic Director, I also have a ton of administrative responsibilities.)

In Kaiser’s article he talks quite a bit about the current feel of burnout in the arts community.  One of the most interesting things about arts managers is that they tend to be extremely efficient.  There just isn’t enough money to do all that needs to be done, so you are constantly looking to find the most efficient and cost effective ways to deliver the greatest quality art possible.  The constant struggle to keep organizations efficient and keep costs low often renders arts managers exhausted.  Tack on the fact that we were all navigating through a recession, and I think it’s the biggest reason you see such exhaustion in the arts community.

The part of Mr. Kaiser’s post I found the most interesting were the comments section.  I highly recommend reading those.  I was surprised at how many people were talking about their health issues and the level of exhaustion.

I have to admit that both Joe White and I felt much of that towards the end of last season.  We couldn’t really blame our donors for cutting their donations – nobody knew what the future would hold, so being conservative made sense.  But, that also meant that we had to find a way to navigate through the reduced donations, etc.

I think the arts tend to be the first hit and the last to recover when the economy slides.  There is increased uncertainty, so people feel that they must start cutting back on the non-essentials.  The arts take that hit pretty hard.  The nice thing is that with the economy recovering, generosity is increasing!  And, OV’s next season is looking to be an amazing one.  (Think live elephant).

I think I am finally beginning to recover mentally from last season, and next season’s projects seem truly exciting, so consider my biweekly blog back!  My only regret from last season was how stressed I constantly was, and the final toll it took on those around me – one person in particular.  But, we all snap back, and hopefully things return to normal.

Music Director Audition – Days 5 and 6

I kept meaning to post something yesterday, but things were crazy busy, so today, you get a post about yesterday and the day before.

2 Days Ago:

On Tuesday, I had my first rehearsal with the Yakima Symphony Orchestra. Amid all the interviews, receptions, and publicity spots, one of the challenges is keeping in mind that the most important reason I’m here in Yakima is to actually conduct the orchestra. (In the end, if I’m hired, that’s what they’re going to pay me to do after all.) One of the biggest challenges is that you have no idea what to expect. It’s a bit like being asked to coach a basketball team you’ve never seen play. I usually start by going through a game plan of a rehearsal in my head (and 90% of the time, it never goes as I envision it!)

Video 12 – Rehearsal Prep

Brooke Creswell, the outgoing music director of the orchestra, introduced me to the orchestra at 6:00PM, and then it was time to get going. I had previously decided that the first half of the rehearsal would be Bernstein’s Three Dance Variations from Fancy Free and Revueltas’ Janitzio. There was a practical reason for the rehearsal order – the Beethoven doesn’t use trombones, tuba, etc., so by doing those pieces in the first half of the rehearsal, the extra brass and percussion could leave.

The orchestra had never played the Bernstein or the Revueltas, so it really was a reading of the music. Taking that into account, we made a good start on the work. As you can hear in the following video, we need to work on the off beats during the trumpet solo. One of the challenges of this hall is that on stage, you can’t really hear the brass well, but from the video, you can tell that the brass do project fairly well. I will need to correct my own thinking on that in the next rehearsal.

Video 13 – Bernstein’s Galop from Fancy Free

In the next rehearsal, I am going to focus primarily on string sound. The hall is bass shy (in other words, the cellos and basses don’t project as well), so the strings have to work harder to really produce a balanced and warm sound. It can be done, but it’s something that we will have to constantly focus on.

All in all, I was truly pleased with the first rehearsal. I think there is a lot of potential, and as we get through the music more and more, we’re really going to make great progress.

Yesterday:

Yesterday was a long day. In the morning I was on KiT radio with Noel Moxley, the executive director of the orchestra. I then had a few hours off before we went to lunch with the endowment oversight committee and some of the bigger donors to the orchestra. Roger, the second trombone player, picked us up and gave us a really neat tour of the area. I got some keen insight into the agriculture industry that drives the valley. I also got a cool lecture on hops growing and production.

Video 14 – How we grow hops (Thanks to Roger Finch)

After our tour, I met the endowment oversight committee and some of the major donors for lunch. We went to a place called Tony’s, which is run by a guy from Austin. (Small world!) I’ll give serious props to Richard Rodriguez because he runs a great restaurant.

I then had about an hour and a half before moving on to the next event – the board interview. There is always a fear that the atmosphere around these board interviews will be one of really bright lights and constant questions – Sayeed-style from Lost, but this really was a wonderful discussion. (I mean, it ended with me discussing fixed cost allocation with the board treasurer, Charley Hanses, so you know it was fun!) One of the things I need to do is pour through the current financial report, but I think that will have to wait until I get back to Houston on Sunday.

Yakima Symphony Music Director Audition – Day 4

This was another long day, but from here on out, they’re all going to be pretty long. I started with a piano rehearsal with Kara Hunnicutt, the soloist for my concert on Saturday. We’re doing Respighi’s Adagio con Variazioni. I have to admit that when it was assigned, I didn’t know the piece! I knew of it, but I had never heard it – what would we do without iTunes?

I thought the piano rehearsal went quite well. Kara doesn’t do the piece the same way twice, so the music is really an organic entity when she plays it. (Tempi might be a bit different, slightly different rubato each time, etc.) The nice thing was that even though she changed quite a bit as she played through the piece, it was very easy to figure out where she was going.

Video 10 – Piano rehearsal with Kara Hunnicutt (Thanks to Lauren for being the camera person!)

In the evening, the outgoing Music Director, Brooke Creswell took us to the youth orchestra rehearsal. I thought there was a good foundation for the young musicians of Yakima. One of the things I need to figure out is what the relationship is between the Yakima Symphony Orchestra and the youth symphony. There is a lot of potential in the youth orchestra for really developing a younger generation of musicians.

Video 11 – Youth Orchestra Rehearsal

Yakima Symphony Music Director Audition Trip – Day 2

One of the primary reasons I came up to Yakima  a day and a half before all the official Music Director audition process started was to try to get to know the town on my own. As most of you who follow my blog know, I constantly talk about how important it is for orchestras to dig their roots into the community to promote their long-term health. To that end, I think it’s important to get to know the town where you could potentially be in charge of programming. One of the challenges to the music director audition process is that there are so many interviews, meetings and parties scheduled that sometimes it’s really tough to get a true sense of the town – you’re constantly being shuffled from one event to the next. On day 2, I decided to just walk around the town.

Video 3 – The concert hall (Of course it’s the first place I checked out!)

You probably need an explanation of the Olive Garden reference. When my parents go out to eat, 95% of the time, they go to the Olive Garden. (Ravioli di portobello, lunch portion!) They don’t even have to look at the menus! So, we joke that if they ever end up in a town without an Olive Garden, they wouldn’t be able to go out to eat!

As I kept walking, I finally started getting a feel of the town. As you saw in the concert hall video, there was a cool little seating area with sculpture right in front. Well, there seem to be random bits of art all over town. (There is even a cool, but from what I understand controversial, granite sculpture in front of the old train depot.) I saw a number of cool little details around the town that I found interesting.

Video 4 – An Artsy Side Street

I continued down the same little side street and saw this.

Video 5 – The Side of a Thai Restaurant

So I kept walking down E. Yakima Ave. and turned right at another major street and saw this. I have to throw this shout out to fellow Houstonian and Opera Vista board member, Chris Mahaffey. (The man brews his own beer!)

Video 6 – Shout out to Chris Mahaffey

No, I haven’t secretly taken up a job with the Yakima, WA tourist bureau, but when a town is surrounded by hops and vineyards, it seems a pretty cool place to visit. You could basically walk around town and do wine tastings all day. Makes you wonder how people tear themselves away from that to come to the concerts!

Finally, I saw this and had a repertoire suggestion for the YSO that I couldn’t resist. Whether it’s me or someone else who gets the job, they seriously should do this.

Video 7 – Repertoire Suggestion

More to follow tomorrow!

Yakima Symphony Music Director Audition Trip – Day 1

I got to Yakima, WA yesterday afternoon, and it was a whirlwind day. I’m trying something new on this trip – video blogging. Along with writing my thoughts down, I’ll be recording video snippets here and there, so you can get an idea of what traveling to conduct an orchestra for the first time is like and an idea of what it feels like to audition for an orchestra job.

Video 1 – On a jet plane! (I know, I know! Shame it’s not a boat!)

The flights to Yakima were fairly uneventful. I had a great time in the Seattle airport for a few hours before my flight to Yakima. Our gate was next to a gate for Vancouver, so I got to people from all over the world trying to get to the Winter Olympics. It was cool to see people in the team gear and countries colors waiting to board their flights.

My arrival in Yakima was pretty neat. We had to fly over the mountains, so the view from the airplane was stunning. Noel Moxley met me at the airport and got me to the Hilton Garden Inn.

Video 2 – The Hilton Garden Inn

Last night, Noel had a bunch of friends meet for dinner. We ended up at “The Restaurant” or Gasperetti’s. The food was great! Yakima is surrounded by vineyards, apple trees, and hops! 70-80% of the hops in the US are produced here in Yakima, and it’s 2nd only to Germany in hops production. I got to try some of the wine from the surrounding area. Haven’t tried the hops yet!

Stay tuned. Each morning, I’ll post some video and write a bit about what happened the day before.

Thoughts on Avatar… and Opera (Part 2 – my opinion)

Yesterday, on my Houston Chronicle blog (reposted here), I wrote a bit about my theory that “opera being long” is not the reason that people have a negative perception of opera.  (I gave as my proof the fact that Avatar was a crazy long movie, but people still sat still through the entire thing).  I said that I would give you my opinion on the matter, so here it is:

I politely put forth my theories as to why people think of opera as a boring, old fashioned art form that is solely for the wealthy and does not speak to the general public:  1) costs continue to drive ticket prices higher, so it does begin to seem that opera is solely for the wealthy, 2) productions of opera can tend to be targeted towards the cognoscenti as opposed to the general public, and 3) opera takes time to understand.  I’ll start with number 3 and work my way back.  I will confess right off the bat that I was not an opera fan.  I went into music and realized I wanted to be a conductor, but I did not start out as an opera fan – I just wanted to conduct orchestra.  I went to my first opera and was thoroughly unimpressed, and this was at the Vienna State Opera and a production of Madame Butterfly!  Looking back on it, I will take all the blame for not getting the opera.  I didn’t know anything about what I was watching.  I did not know Italian, so I could not understand the plot, and I sure didn’t get the German supertitles.  I was lost.  There was some pretty music, but I really did not care because I couldn’t tell up from down.

By no means am I suggesting that in order to understand opera you need to go out and learn Italian.  That’s not the case.  It does help to take a few minutes and familiarize yourself with the basic plot.  That way, if you do not understand the language of the opera you can keep abreast of the plot (and I’ll be honest, even with having studied Italian, German, and French – I don’t get ½ of what the singers are singing – it goes by too fast).

It does take a bit to get an idea of how an opera works.  I compare it to going to a Bollywood film for the first time.  If you sit there and expect it to be similar to a western film, you’ll be thoroughly lost after the first dance sequence.  You’ll spend way too much time wondering where all those other dancing people came from!  Opera can be much of the same way – why do they break out into an aria (song)?  What is that silly speak/singing they do?  Getting an idea of each of the components of an opera does help keep you up with the plot and drama.

Finally, the last tip I tend to give people that ask me how to “get into opera” is to show up early enough to let yourself get into the right frame of mind.  Opera (like cinema, good books) transports you to a different sense of time.  An hour can feel like minutes, and (unfortunately at times?) seconds can feel like hours.  It’s tough to sink into the opera’s sense of time if you’ve just run in after work, you’re still mulling over that problem at home, etc.  (Of course, I do think a great performance helps you forget all that and transports you to a different world no matter what baggage you bring with you).

Ahh… the great performance!  This is the one (number 2 on my list above) I put squarely on the heads of us opera folk.  Too often, I’ve seen a production that does something innovative and different simply to be innovative and different – not necessarily because it pushes the plot.  One of the reasons for this is that opera companies are constantly struggling to generate press, so one way to do this is to create something that people talk about.  I’m all for that, but if there is a sound and thoughtful reason to do it.  Audiences know when they’re being pandered to, so simply creating a production that’s “innovative” to create buzz won’t fly.  Audiences are too smart.  The other reason we often see the “innovative” production is that stage directors are constantly being pushed to come up with something new and different to distinguish themselves from their peers.  Again, this can be a great thing if they come up with something truly innovative.  But, there are those times that the production is different simply for the sake of doing something different.

I don’t want to sound like I’m against creativity and innovation – in fact, I think quite the opposite.  I think more opera companies need to truly explore innovation and put a lot of thought in their productions.  One of the things Michael Kaiser talked about in his presentation while in Houston was that arts organizations need to plan far enough in advance to truly develop the production.  I think he’s 100% right.  (And it’s the direction that Opera Vista is moving in its 4^th season – we’re finally brainstorming productions years in advance).  I’ll talk more about innovation in the next blog.

Finally, there is the cost issue.  Opera tickets cost a good chunk of money!  I admit it.  (Which is one reason that Opera Vista focuses on keeping costs in the $20 range)!  I wrote quite a bit as to why costs continue to rise in this blog. One of the issues we face is to continue to aggressively fundraise, and develop good marketing to help fundraising to keep costs down.  (This is one reason I think that arts organizations MUST pursue innovative and thoughtful programming – the more press you can generate because of great shows, the easier it is to fundraise and the better job you are doing for your community).

More thoughts on this in the next blog, then back to the Michael Kaiser, Beethoven and Wagner discussions.  If you’d like to learn more about opera, Opera Vista’s next Opera 101 is at Boheme cafe and wine bar on January 8, 2010 at 8:00PM.  Come learn about opera in a fun/laid-back atmosphere.

Kaiser is King (Part 2): Thoughts on Michael Kaiser’s Visit to Houston

In my last blog, I began talking about Michael Kaiser’s visit to Houston.  I’ve been thinking about his idea that arts organizations are in some ways easy to run.  (For the biggest financial difficulties we face – please see my blog about the insane cost structure that we are burdened with). Mr. Kaiser talks about thinking about arts organizations like big machines that repeat the same process – come up with great art, market it well, so people know about all the great things you’re doing, rinse repeat. He really breaks the process down into a simple formula.

Mr. Kaiser’s plan begins at the point where the arts begin – with the actual arts!  For too many people, the opera, the symphony, and the classical arts in general are perceived simply as “old-fashioned” art forms that don’t speak to the current culture.  The big question is why this seems to be an insurmountable “truth.”  (I have nothing against people who don’t like the classical arts, but I do have issues with people who have never been and “just don’t like it” – I think it’s like food, if you don’t try it, how do you know whether you like it or not?  That’s a blog for a different time, though).

One of the first things he talks about in relation to arts organizations that lose their way is that all too often, when funding becomes tight, the first thing the arts organization does is begin cutting programming and marketing.  The second thing that is usually done is that the programming becomes more “conservative.”  The panic over the funding drying up starts sinking in, and the decision is made to program the “favorites.”  So, not only is the marketing cut to save money, but a lot of the old favorites are recycled through.

Mr. Kaiser discussed this process as the beginning of the death spiral, and there is logic to his point.  As you cut the marketing, fewer and fewer people know about all the amazing things you’re doing for the community (and fewer people know about you to buy tickets), and even if they did come, the programming is not fresh and exciting.  I think the other side of this is that without exciting programming, the organization/orchestra gets bored, the performances go stale, and that absolutely does not help the cause.

I admit that it all sounds great, but the implementation is pretty tough when you’re running an arts organization by the seat of your pants.  The initial years, you spend every waking minute trying to make sure that every penny is spent efficiently.  Nobody makes any money, and you’re driving every moment of your time into building the foundation of the organization.  (I think this is one reason that foundations force arts organizations to survive a few years on their own before they’re given funding – if you can make it past the first 2-3 years of a start-up (without huge initial donations or family money), you have proven that you know how deal with finances).

This puts a lot of responsibility on the head of the artistic director, and I think that is fair.  It is definitely one of those – if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen fields.  (I’ll talk about this in relation to conductors later).  This also means that the board’s selection of artistic director is one of the most important tasks that they have.  They must find someone who can come up with creative ideas that light their community on fire!  So, the whole thing starts with the artistic direction, and as an artistic director and conductor, of course I think that’s the way it should be.  The side of me that did an MBA snickers at that last statement since he knows that without the amazing work of the executive director, all that work on developing great art is pretty useless – it takes money to make great art.

So, now that you have great and innovative programming, what next?  That’s where the executive side comes in – Marketing!

In the next few blogs, I’ll talk about marketing and especially institutional marketing (again from an artistic perspective), and I’ll focus a bit on what I think is important from the perspective of an artistic director.  As always, comments are always appreciated.

Thoughts on Michael Kaiser’s Visit to Houston: Kaiser is King Part 1

Michael Kaiser (whom I’ve mentioned in blogs in the past) was in Houston as part of the Kennedy Center’s “Arts in Crisis” tour.  When the U.S. slipped into recession, it became a very tenuous time for arts organizations.  There were so many rumors of arts organizations on the brink – and a number of them have sadly folded.  Michael Kaiser decided that as the head of America’s premier arts organization, he should go out and help arts organizations weather the storm.  As a founder of an arts organization in Houston, I want to be one of the many attendees to thank him for coming!

Jenni Rebecca Stephenson from Spacetaker has a wonderful blog about Michael Kaiser’s take on arts organizations and education, so I thought I would focus on his views on arts organizations and non-profits as a business.  Mr. Kaiser started out in the for-profit world.  (He made a wonderful point about one of the major differences between the for-profit world and the not-for-profit world – the for-profit world has its mission in its title – they are for profit.  We in the non-profit world just know what we’re not for).  As someone who just finished a for-profit MBA (Go Horns!), I admit that his ideas for the arts completely resonated with me.  In a previous blog post (again riffing on a Michael Kaiser blog), I discussed the complicated cost structure that the arts are faced with.  You can read more about it here.

In the non-profit world, we are constantly challenged to raise increasing amounts of money to be able to fund our missions.  In the for-profit world, you’d find ways to create efficiencies (which the arts can and must do), but most companies that faced the cost structure of the arts would simply have closed shop.  Arts managers in some ways are the most efficient managers out there.  The problem is that we spend so much time worrying about how much we’re spending that it can take our eyes off the ball.  If there was one major point to Mr. Kaiser’s presentation, I believe it was that – we are arts organizations, focus on our mission.

He always starts with his fundamental mantra for arts management – “great art, marketed well.”  I remember the first time I heard it, I thought he was over simplifying the situation.  His track record, though, belies that.  (He has taken a number of truly struggling arts organizations with high levels of debt and in relatively short order turned them into solvent and highly functional arts organizations).  Having now spent three years building an arts organization from scratch – I can now say, he’s 100% right.  You start with a strong focus on the art – on the mission of the organization.  First and foremost, we’re arts organizations.  We bring great art to Houston.  Then, you let people know about all the great art we bring to Houston and what we do for the community… rinse… repeat.

In my next blog, I’ll focus on the “marketing machine” and how this is put into practice (as told by Mr. Kaiser).  I’ll talk a bit about risk in programming and the artistic director’s role in the “marketing machine” (from my perspective).  You can get a head start by reading Mr. Kaiser’s blog on administration and the arts here.

Will the symphony fail? Thoughts on Michael Kaiser’s blog.

I just finished an incredible book called The Art of the Turnaround by the President of the Kennedy Center, Michael Kaiser.  Michael Kaiser has gained the nickname of “The Turnaround King” since he rose to prominence by taking art organizations on the brink of bankruptcy and moved them back to profitability in short order.  He would then leave them in a position to be sustainable and move on to the next arts organization in crisis.

I also follow Mr. Kaiser’s blog on the Huffington Post, and that’s what I want to write a bit about today.  I was actually quite amazed by the reaction his comments received.  I don’t believe that he said anything in that blog that was really out there, but it sparked a lot of debate – but debate on how to make the arts thrive is a good thing.

He started out by talking about the biggest challenge that arts organizations face – fixed costs.  The biggest cost challenge with orchestras and operas is personnel.  It takes the same number of people to perform opera and orchestral pieces as it did in the 1800s – there is no way around that if we are to maintain the experience.  That means that all of that personnel needs to be paid fairly.  Instrumentalists and singers put in a crazy amount of work to create the professional level performances.  (I think one of the problems is that they do so much work to make it look easy on stage that people automatically think it’s easy to do – it’s not.  Instrumentalists have to cultivate fine motor skills equivalent to that of a surgeon, and that just takes a lot of practice).

With many for profit organizations, as expertise develops, and efficiencies increase, fixed costs can be lowered, so the cost of production can be lowered, etc.  Arts organizations actually have the opposite problem – fixed costs rise because you are paying people to perform, and with inflation, pay has to increase so musicians can survive.  This means that the cost structure of a symphony orchestra and opera is such that fixed costs will constantly rise about the same amount as inflation.   (I’m simplifying, of course).

One way to fight this is to generate more income, which could mean increasing ticket prices.  The problem is that as you increase ticket prices, you make it tougher and tougher for people to attend concerts (so demand for tickets drops).  This also tends to play into the misconception that the classical arts are elitist and the play thing of the wealthy.  (Odd, especially when you consider the fact that the people who are probably the most passionate about the arts – the performers – are by no means wealthy).  The other issue that Mr. Kaiser mentions is that contributions will have to increase at a slightly higher rate than inflation in order to cover costs.  Seems like a no win situation, huh?

I honestly don’t believe that we’re about to see the death of the classical arts.  In fact, I think we’re seeing a very vibrant time for the classical arts purely because of the challenges we’re facing.  Arts organizations are forced to be more creative in the way they address their communities, and there is a great deal of experimentation in programming and outreach.  All of these can be very good things.  But, back to the business:

Economists talk quite a bit about positive externalities.  Positive externalities are simply good things that happen to/for parties that may not be directly involved in the transaction.  Let’s say that you own a house on a block.  Your neighbor takes incredible care of his/her yard.  That in some ways is a positive externality for you – you aren’t directly involved in the care of his yard, but you do benefit by his/her yard being kept spotless – it makes the entire block look better.  Arts organizations provide this to the communities they are in.  Operas, orchestras, museums, etc. create a myriad of positive externalities for the communities they are in – far beyond the benefits for those involved in the transaction.  I’ll talk a bit more about that in future blogs, but I’m way off my original topic of Michael Kaiser’s blog.

The basic point of Mr. Kaiser’s blog was that enlightened conversation and frank discussion is needed to figure out how to overcome this fundamental issue in the business model of orchestras, etc.  I was amazed at how many different stakeholders felt they were being attacked in Mr. Kaiser’s blog.  We do need thoughtful and enlightened discussion on how we’re going to make the arts viable going into the future.  It’s not new; about every 100 years, the funding model and the business model for the arts undergoes some sort of shift.  We need to take this on as an opportunity as opposed to a calamity.  Go!  Fight!  Win!