With hand wringing over empty seats and the “papering” arts organizations do to make a hall look respectable, the phrase “not worth the paper it’s written on” comes to mind. There is a golden opportunity to empower the audience to help recruit new audience members with a free ticket and/or referral program…..
Arts Funding
Not a failure to Launch, but a failure to Lunch!…except in Hawaii…
Vitriol, court actions and labor disputes abound in the orchestra world. Every situation is complicated, different and/or unique in many ways. There is one constant that links them all and that is a failure to communicate directly. Unscrambled eggs anyone…….
Putting the Unity in CommUnity! – Part 1: Arts in Action!
In August last year the Community Foundation of the Ozarks formed a committee of arts leaders (including yours truly) and gave us a challenge with funding attached:
Come up with a program that sustains the arts in Springfield. Part one went into effect on March 14….and it’s big!…
Taking a bow and then shooting across it!….
On our summer trip last year, I was amused when we drove across “Nameless Creek” Indiana because by calling it that, it actually gave it a name! Just as ironic was to read that the CEO and President of the Grand Rapids Symphony Peter Kjome had “no comment” when asked a pertinent question relating to their staff salary cuts and how it would impact the musician’s agreement, and then he promptly commented!……
Peoria Symphony – Where the walls come tumbling up!
I’ll never forget watching a NBA post game news conference when the winning coach was asked what made him think to put the ball in the hands of a rookie who then scored seemingly at will to win the game. His response and I paraphrase:
I didn’t, the guy thought we were in trouble and he stepped up to help the team, he led the leaders and we won the game!
The Peoria Symphony needs someone like that to step up to save their team…well someone has tried and failed, so now someone else needs to ……Time for some Schock treatment!……not a misspelling I assure you…..
Meshugass in Michigan!….
Pssst…paging Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA), you might not have heard this but the economy is in the “tank” right now, so using the economic impact of the arts to convince the governor to not eliminate arts funding might not be the best tactic! It might make the arts go the way of the Sphinx…wait!…in fact Sphinx is actually the way you should go…..
Paying for Arts in the Land of the Free…
I was sad to read that the Milwaukee Symphony are canceling 4 out of their 5 free concerts. It’s probable that many more orchestras might be forced to cancel free concerts as budget choices are made. In Springfield we usually do 2 free concerts each summer. They are not for certain since they’re connected with city festivals that are at this point are on hold. The NEA might be getting $50 million extra this year, so I’ve got a suggestion…..
Dear President Obama…..
Congratulations….to us! So many have tried to define you, to put you in a box so that they may find it easy to corner you, and yet you surprise all of us at every turn….