Symphony Summer 2022

SUM M ER 2022 n $6. 95 S Y M P H O N Y

Forward Together Orchestras face the future indoors and out, in communities, virtually—and more

SUMMER 2022

Black Conductors​, Then and Now

Turbulent Scores: Climate Change in Music

Helping Refugee Musicians

2023-2024 Season Pianists

CHRISTOPHER ATZINGER FACULTY, ST. OLAF COLLEGE

HANNA BACHMANN MARIKA BOURNAKI MISHA DICHTER RICHARD DOWLING ROBERT HENRY

DIRECTOR OF PIANO STUDIES, KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY

TAKA KIGAWA SPENCER MYER

Conductors

DAVID BERNARD

MUSIC DIRECTOR, MASSAPEQUA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA MUSIC DIRECTOR, PARK AVENUE CHAMBER SYMPHONY

TERESA CHEUNG ANTHONY BLAKE CLARK

MUSIC DIRECTOR, BALTIMORE CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY DIRECTOR OF CHORAL ACTIVITIES, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

KENNETH FREED NEAL GITTLEMAN

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, DAYTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

ELLIOT MOORE

FACULTY, INDIANA UNIVERSITY JACOBS SCHOOL OF MUSIC

MUSIC DIRECTOR, BLUE PERIOD ENSEMBLE MUSIC DIRECTOR, LONGMONT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JOHN NOVACEK ANNA SHELEST DIANE WALSH

MUSIC DIRECTOR, TRAVERSE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR, PRO ARTE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA OF BOSTON

KEVIN RHODES

BRIAN VILIUNAS

ORCHESTRA DIRECTOR, SAMFORD UNIVERSITY

Violinists

PETER STAFFORD WILSON

FRANCESCA ANDEREGG FACULTY, ST. OLAF COLLEGE

MUSIC DIRECTOR, SPRINGFIELD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OH) MUSIC DIRECTOR, WESTERVILLE SYMPHONY PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR, TULSA BALLET

Ensembles

ROBERT DAVIDOVICI

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

JUDITH INGOLFSSON

FACULTY, PEABODY INSTITUTE OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

RACHEL LEE PRIDAY

FACULTY, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Cellist

ADRIAN DAUROV

Clarinetist

BRIAN VILIUNAS

FACULTY, SAMFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

DAUROV/MYER DUO MISHA & CIPA DICHTER DUO INGOLFSSON-STOUPEL SCHWARZ & BOURNAKI SHEA-KIM DUO DUO STEPHANIE & SAAR SUMMIT PIANO TRIO EUCLID QUARTET

RESIDENT STRING QUARTET, INDIANA UNIVERSITY SOUTH BEND

Special Attractions

IVORY&GOLD® ECLECTIC AMERICANA “MARK TWAIN TODAY” WITH ORCHESTRA! 382 Central Park West #9G, New York, NY 10025, (212) 864-7928, Fax (212) 864-8189

w w w. p a r k e r a r t i s t s . c o m

Prelude

W

hen Russia invaded Ukraine, orchestras everywhere played Ukraine’s national anthem and works by Ukrainian composers to demonstrate solidary with the war-torn country. Swift responses to heartbreaking situations are turning up at more and more at orchestras, in ways that go beyond holding fundraisers ​​ and playing evocative scores in a show of support. U.S. orchestras are commissioning works that confront tragic events and social injustice in the here and now, from a far more diverse range of composers than before. The scores embrace mourning, protest, lamentation, and rage, and function as rallying cries and as tearful cris de coeur.

Music can speak truth to power—​but it can a​ lso speak for the powerful. All those military marches, battle hymns vowing to crush the opposition, jingoistic fanfares—not to mention the heavy ironies of composers like Wagner, whose music aspires to the divine but whose real-life racist and anti-Semitic views were repugnant. Recently, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, written to celebrate Russia’s victory over Napoleon, was removed from ​multiple concert programs because i​ts bombastic cannon fire was deemed inappropriate given the current situation in Ukraine. Yet 1812 is a favorite at America’s July 4 orchestra concerts, which celebrate this country’s Independence Day. Context is everything.

In this issue, we report on how orchestras are taking action to help refugee musicians who were forced to flee their homelands, the myriad ways that composers are grappling with the environmental crisis, the increasing presence of Black conductors Akustiks Symphony Ad 4C-2021-v2_Layout 1 5/5/21 PMmight Page ask 1 why orchestras—which exist on orchestra podiums, and much more. 5:11 Some to play music—would venture into the fierce urgencies of now. But orchestras always have. Just ask Tchaikovsky.

The new David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center home of the New York Philharmonic

DAVID GEFFEN HALL BUILDING INTERIOR PHOTO CREDIT: DIAMOND SCHMITT

Coming in 2022...

symphony T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E L E AG U E O F A M E R I C A N O R C H E S T R A S

VOLUME 73, NUMBER 2 / SUMMER 2022

symphony® the award-winning quarterly

magazine of the League of American Orchestras, discusses issues critical to the orchestra community and commun­icates to the American public the value and importance of orchestras and the music they perform.

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Robert Sandla

MANAGING EDITOR

Jennifer Melick

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN

Ginger Dolden

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR ADVERTISING ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER PRINTED BY

Stephen Alter Ian Dennis Simon Woods Dartmouth Printing Co. Hanover, NH

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SUMMER 2022

TH E M AGA ZI N E O F TH E LE AG U E O F A MERIC A N O RCH ES TR AS

2 Prelude by Robert Sandla

symphony SUMMER 2022

4 The Score

14 Forward Together

The pandemic has been a time of unprecedented collaborative learning among orchestras. But, says League President and CEO Simon Woods, the postpandemic environment will require orchestras to go further, finding ways to integrate departmental goals and organizational aspirations with new clarity.

Todd Rosenberg

Orchestra news, moves, and events

What do orchestra managers need to succeed today? A new book by Travis Newton, Orchestra Management Handbook: Building Relationships in Turbulent Times, offers a guide to a career in this demanding, rewarding profession.

28 Global Assist

Ukraine is only the most recent tragic conflict to create refugees by the millions.

Orchestras and others in the classical music community are taking action to help displaced artists as they navigate life away from home. By Jeremy Reynolds

36 Songs of the Earth

Climate change is a major focus for composers writing for orchestra. The topic is taking on increased urgency, with a broad swath of new works taking multiple approaches—and even finding reasons for hope. By Brian Wise

Cynthia Adams

24 Leading Perspectives

Matt Turner

Board chairs of seven California orchestras speak about what they see as today’s key issues—for their own orchestras and the field at large. By Steven Brown

Jessica Lustig

18 Board Room

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Floods of Fire, a response to Australia’s environmental crisis, is the product of a large-scale collaboration. People from multiple backgrounds and groups came together to create the work—and the process may be more important than the result. By Hugh Robertson

Tom Pease

42 Community, Climate, Composition, Collaboration

Conductors of Western classical orchestras have almost all been White men. Few American orchestras put a Black music director on the podium, and many Black musical artists had to head to Europe to build careers. That’s changing, but are things moving far enough, fast enough? By Rosalyn Story

56 In the Main Stream

Digital efforts are part of the “new normal” for orchestras. But what is the right balance between virtual and in-person music-making? And how does an orchestra turn a concert stream into an income stream? By Vivien Schweitzer

61 Advertiser Index 62 League of American Orchestras Annual Fund 64 Coda

American conductor Hobart Earle, music director of the Odessa Philharmonic for two decades, offers an insider’s perspective on musical life in Ukraine—before and during the Russian invasion.

Throughout this issue, text marked like this indicates a link to websites and online resources.

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

Kristen Loken

48 Where Do We Stand?

4 28 36 42 48 56 64

ABOUT THE COVER This summer, the Los Angeles Philharmonic welcomes audiences—and the League of American Orchestras 2022 National Conference—to the Hollywood Bowl. Since the Bowl’s opening in 1922, it has been a prime destination for live music and an iconic part of the Southern California landscape. Photo: LA Phil 3

The Score N E WS, M OVES, A N D E VEN TS I N T H E O RCH ES TR A I N D US TRY

It felt like a solemn occasion—and it was. In March, the National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale in Maryland performed the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s America’s Requiem: A Knee on the Neck, a 40-minute cantata composed in memory of George Floyd and other Black victims of police brutality. Hailstork, the work’s composer, and librettist Herbert Martin were both in attendance at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda for the premiere, led by Music Director Piotr Gajewski.

America’s Requiem begins with “A Black Mother’s Commandment,” a five-part poem set to music, sung by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Later, a section entitled “Folk Song” intertwines Floyd’s death with references to death as a “virus going round taking names.” The work concludes with a more hopeful Hymn. America’s Requiem is the most recent of several orchestral works composed in response to the deaths of George Floyd and others at the hands of police. More are on the way. Composer Carlos Simon and librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph are at work on a commission for the Minnesota Orchestra called brea(d)th, honoring George Floyd and the work toward equity and healing in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed; it is set to premiere in May 2023.

Jennifer Melick

A Requiem for George Floyd

National Philharmonic Music Director Piotr Gajewski (on podium) applauds librettist Herbert Martin (with flowers, left) and composer Adolphus Hailstork (with flowers, right) at the world premiere of America’s Requiem: A Knee on the Neck, March 26, 2022.

Roy Cox

Gemma New Adds New Zealand Symphony to Dallas and Hamilton Conducting Posts

Gemma New

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In February, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (Te Tira Pūoro o Aotearoa) announced that Gemma New has been appointed as artistic advisor and principal conductor through the 2024 season. New, a native of Wellington, New Zealand, adds the post to those at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, where she is principal guest conductor, and Canada’s Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, where she is music director. The New Zealand Symphony noted that New had one of her first conducting experiences when she was a member of the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. In her new position, New joins NZSO Principal Conductor-in-Residence Hamish McKeich, Honorary Conductor Pietari Inkinen, and Music Director Emeritus James Judd. In 2020 and 2021, New conducted the NZSO in seven programs that included standard repertoire and works by New Zealand composers; she also led the NZSO in recordings. In the current season, New conducts programs featuring Mozart’s Requiem, New Zealand composer John Psathas’s Seikilos, and violinist Hilary Hahn. The NZSO performs in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Napier, and Tauranga.

SUMMER 2022

Ukrainian Voices Abroad Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, many Ukrainian musicians have been forced to flee their homeland. This spring brought multiple announcements of performances by Ukrainian musicians in Europe and elsewhere. In April, the Metropolitan Opera and the Polish National Opera announced a new Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra that will tour Europe and the U.S. this summer. The orchestra’s musicians come from European and Ukrainian ensembles including the Kyiv National Opera, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, and Kharkiv Opera. CanadianA marketing image announcing the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, which will tour Europe Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, who is married to and the United States this summer.

Met Opera General Director Peter Gelb, will lead concerts in Poland, France, Germany, the U.K., New York City, and Washington, D.C. In addition to music by Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Dvořák, concerts will feature Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s Seventh Symphony. A separate Europe tour by musicians of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra began in April with performances in Poland and Germany. The orchestra describes the tour, named “Voice of Ukraine,” as a form of cultural diplomacy. In Germany, an orchestra of displaced Ukrainians, “Mriya,” was formed in March and has been performing at the Berliner Philharmonie, home of the Berlin Philharmonic. That ensemble’s conductor, Margaryta Grynyvetskam, is conductor of the Odesa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater.

Todd Rosenberg

Chicago Resounding

The CSO’s Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprentice Lina González-Granados leads the Chicago Youth in Music Festival Orchestra in a rehearsal of Liszt’s Les préludes.

This April, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s annual Chicago Youth in Music Festival featured three days of rehearsals and coaching with Lina GonzálezGranados, the CSO’s Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprentice. The festival culminated in an open rehearsal led by CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti, with student musicians working side-by-side with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and Chicago Sinfonietta. New this year: the festival’s first National Pathways Summit, a weekend presented in partnership with the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, which prepares young musicians from underrepresented backgrounds to attend top music schools, and the National Instrumentalist Mentoring and Advancement Network, which works to develop equitable opportunities and inclusive environments to help Black, Indigenous, and People of Color instrumentalists to thrive in classical music. The festival and summit brought together more than 100 students and institutional leaders from across the country.

Lizzo, the rapper and singer/songwriter who’s also a classically trained flutist, has wide-ranging musical interests and she’s got followers— more than 12 million of them on her main Instagram page alone. She’s performed with the New York Philharmonic in a virtual 2020 graduation ceremony and in a Saturday Night Live sketch featuring an all-twerking orchestra. This May, she showed off her new purchase, a flute named the Dryad’s Touch, at the Metropolitan Museum’s annual fashion gala in Manhattan. The $55,000 gold flute—joining her other flutes, which include the silver Sasha flute, which has its own Instagram account and is named after Beyoncé’s alter ego Sasha Fierce—features nature-inspired artwork. At the Met gala, her gown and black-and-gold coat were designed by Thom Browne, and she wore a necklace evoking the neck rings worn by Zimbabwe’s Ndebele women, with colors nicely picked up by her 18-karat green-gold flute. Lizzo didn’t just pose on the red carpet: she performed a bit of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

tomandlorenzo.com

Prelude to a Gala

Lizzo makes an entrance—and plays Debussy on her new flute—on the red carpet at the Metropolitan Museum’s 2022 fashion gala in NYC.

5

THE SCORE

The League of American Orchestras’ Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview put the spotlight on six conductors on the rise—Bertie Baigent, Tong Chen, Gonzalo Farias, Norman Huynh, Yuwon Kim, and François López-Ferrer—who led the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans on March 16 and 17, 2022. One of the orchestra field’s most prestigious opportunities for conductors to showcase their talent, the Preview offered the conductors two days of rehearsals, networking, and meetings with industry professionals, culminating in a free public concert with the Louisiana Philharmonic in music by Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Montgomery, Ravel, and Stravinsky. Orchestra search committees, artist managers, and artistic administrators could observe and evaluate participants in rehearsal and performance, and meet them individually. Postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic, this year’s showcase featured all six conductors from the 2020 Preview. The concert was streamed live and available on demand for 45 days.

Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee

LEAGUE SHOWCASES SIX NEXT-GEN CONDUCTORS IN NEW ORLEANS

At the League of American Orchestras’ Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview in New Orleans, left to right: conductors François López-Ferrer, Tong Chen, Bertie Baigent; League President and CEO Simon Woods; Louisiana Philharmonic Executive Director Anwar Nasir; conductors Gonzalo Farias, Norman Huynh, Yuwon Kim.

Lincoln Center will gain an unexpected ornament this summer—a mirrored disco ball—that signals new directions for the venerable performing arts center’s annual summer festivals. For its 2022 “Summer for the City” festival, May 14-August 14, Lincoln Center will present more than 300 events, most of them free, many of them interactive, in multiple genres on three indoor stages and ten outdoor spaces. The festival opens with a public singalong featuring the Young People’s Chorus Illustration by Ali Kashfi of the planned outdoor dance floor at Lincoln Center’s “Summer for the of New York conducted by Elizabeth Núñez.

City” festival in Manhattan.

Performances include two versions of Mozart’s Requiem: Mostly Mozart Festival Music Director Louis Langrée will lead the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, vocal soloists, and the Unsung Collective chorus in the original version; it’s one of a dozen Mostly Mozart concerts this summer. And choreographer Kyle Abraham, his dance troupe, and composer Jlin will reimagine the Requiem as an electronic work that memorializes ritual and rebirth.

Other events will feature popular music; social dancing with live bands; a “second line” procession by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra; an evening-long performance in honor of Juneteenth; and a celebration of quinceañera, the Latin American rite of passage.

Mark Gibson

Connecting Past and Present in Terre Haute

Current and former Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra musicians reunited for a recent concert. From left: Former THSO Associate Concertmaster Benjamin Hoffman; cellist Natania Hoffman; ISU President Deborah Curtis; former THSO conductor Ramon Meyer; current THSO Artistic Director David Bowden.

6

The Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra recently presented a concert at Indiana State University Tilson Auditorium honoring the contributions of former music director Ramon Meyer, former concertmaster Bob Billups, and his wife, former principal cellist Marilyn Billups. The November concert also honored Indiana State University’s pivotal role in the orchestra’s founding in 1926, which followed a meeting of faculty members in the ISU Department of Music who would go on to spearhead efforts to form the orchestra.

Ramon Meyer and Bob Billups are also former ISU music faculty members.

Performing at the concert, led by current Artistic Director David Bowden, were former THSO Associate Concertmaster Benjamin Hoffman and his sister, cellist Natania Hoffman. The program featured Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Cello, the same work performed by the orchestra in 1979, with Bob and Marilyn Billups as soloists and led by Ramon Meyer, then in his first season as the THSO’s music director. A reception with Indiana State University President Deborah Curtis followed the concert.

SUMMER 2022

THE SCORE

New Hire and Staff Restructuring at the League John F. Martin

The League of American Orchestras has named Caen Thomason-Redus to the newly created position of Vice President, Inclusion and Learning. He will lead the League’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion across the orchestra field as well as its learning and convening programs. In addition, the League has reorganized its Leadership Team, led by President and CEO Simon Woods, to bring new voices to the organization and support a renewed focus on serving its more than 1,800 orchestra, institutional, and individual members.

Thomason-Redus joins the League from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where he served Caen Thomason-Redus, appointed to the as Senior Director of Community and Learning from 2017 to the present. He joined the DSO newly created position of Vice President, Inclusion and Learning at the League of as Director of Community and Learning in 2015. Prior to that, he was a development director American Orchestras at the Sphinx Organization, a flute professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and an Orchestra Fellow in the flute section of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Thomason-Redus has advised organizations including El Sistema USA, the National Flute Association, Fifth House Ensemble, Early Music Now (WI), and Iris Orchestra (TN). Thomason-Redus was named one of Musical America’s Top 30 Arts Administrators in 2019 and is a recipient of the Sphinx Organization’s MPower Artist Grant. He studied music at Rice University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Redlands. His education includes studies at Leadership Detroit and the American Express Leadership Academy as well as training in equity, diversity, and inclusion.

In the reconfigured Leadership Team, Rachel Rossos Gallant has been promoted to Vice President, Marketing and Membership with a focus on member relations and communications, and Karen Yair moves to a new position as Vice President, Knowledge and Resources, where she will support orchestras through data, research, and resources. Led by Simon Woods, the team includes Marlah BonnerMcDuffie, Vice President, Development; Heather Noonan, Vice President for Advocacy; and Marc Martin, Senior Director, Finance and Administration.

Prieto Tapped to Lead North Carolina Symphony

Carlos Miguel Prieto

The North Carolina Symphony has appointed Carlos Miguel Prieto as its next music director, succeeding Grant Lewellyn, who stepped down in 2020. Prieto’s four-year term begins with the 2023-24 season, and he will serve as music director designate during the 2022-23 season. Prieto has been a regular guest conductor with the North Carolina Symphony since 2011, and is currently the orchestra’s artistic advisor. A native of Mexico City, Prieto has served as the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director since 2006; his final season there will be in 2022-23. He is also music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in Mexico City.

Prieto was named Musical America’s 2019 Conductor of the Year; a graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, he has conducted more than 100 world premieres and has championed music by Black and Mexican composers. The North Carolina Symphony performs at Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh and elsewhere in North Carolina.

Baltimore Symphony Selects Mark C. Hanson as President

Stephanie Pool

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has named Mark C. Hanson president and chief executive officer, succeeding Peter Kjome. Hanson stepped down in August 2021 as the CEO of the San Francisco Symphony, which he had joined in 2017. He started at the Baltimore Symphony in April. The orchestra is currently searching for a music director to replace Marin Alsop; at the San Francisco Symphony, Hanson oversaw the process that led to the hiring of Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director. His accomplishments in San Francisco include restoring the organization to consecutive years of balanced budgets; negotiating a four-year contract with musicians; leading a comprehensive rebranding and the launch of a streaming service; and developing Mark Hanson a cross-constituency Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workgroup. Hanson previously held leadership positions at the Rockford (Illinois) Symphony Orchestra, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Houston Symphony. Hanson, who trained as a cellist, studied at the Eastman School of Music and graduated from Harvard University, with further education at the Interaction Institute for Social Change and Harvard Business School. He is a recipient of the League of American Orchestras’ Helen M. Thomson Award for Exceptional Leadership.

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

7

THE SCORE

Black Orchestral Network Launches

On May 2, Black members of more than 40 orchestras announced the Black Orchestral Network (BON), a collective of Black orchestral musicians dedicated to creating an inclusive and equitable environment in the orchestral field. BON’s founders are seven Black musicians: Jennifer Arnold, Alexander Laing, David A. Norville, Joy Payton-Stevens, Shea Scruggs, Weston Sprott, and Titus Underwood. The organization’s first public campaign is an open letter, “Dear American Orchestras,” focused on advancing equity and inclusion in American orchestras.

Artists, audience members, educators, music lovers, culture bearers, and enthusiasts were invited to co-sign the letter, which calls for orchestras to hire Black musicians and support opportunities for emerging Black artists; for funders to invest in the long-term viability of organizations already committed to Black orchestral artistry; and for unions to stand in solidarity with Black members. The organization called for a Day of Solidarity on May 9, asking supporters to post a graphic, provided by BON, to their social media pages with the hashtag #DearAmericanOrchestras. Learn more at https://black-orchestral-network.squarespace.com/.

TORONTO X 5

Jag Gundu

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra kicked off its 100th-anniversary year with a concert at Roy Thomson Hall on April 9 entitled “Celebrate 100: Maestros’ Special Homecoming.” The concert featured TSO Music Director Gustavo Gimeno and four former TSO music directors: Conductor Emeritus Peter Oundjian, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Günther Herbig, and Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis. The program included Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole, and the five conductors tag-teamed conducting an encore, Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance Op. 72, No. 7. Marion Newman—a Kwagiulth and Stó:lō First Nations mezzo-soLeft to right: Toronto Symphony Orchestra Music Director Gustavo Gimeno, former prano with English, Irish, and Scottish heritage—served as music directors Peter Oundjian, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sir Andrew Davis, and host for the concert, which featured music highlighting key Günther Herbig moments in the TSO’s history. The TSO’s 100th anniversary year—from April 2022 to June 2023—will continue this fall with Gimeno leading a free public concert to open the season on September 24, and a North American tour in February 2023 that will include performances in Chicago and New York City.

Kalamazoo Symphony at 100 Michigan’s Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra is marking its 100th birthday with a year of events, beginning in 2021 and continuing through the end of the current season. The orchestra was founded in 1921 by Leta Snow, who believed the Kalamazoo and Southwest Michigan comThe Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra has come a long way since its founding in 1921. Above, the orchestra in 1924. munity would benefit from an orchestra that could bring musical experiences into their lives.

Snow—who’s been described as Kalamazoo’s “patron saint of fine music”—would later convene a meeting in Chicago of representatives from 40 U.S. orchestras that would lead to the founding of the League of American Orchestras in 1942. In marking 100 years, the Kalamazoo Symphony is looking past—and forward. This season, the KSO performed the North American premiere of Chilean composer Enrique’s Soro’s 1921 Sinfonia Romántica, in a new critical edition by Music Director Julian Kuerti. Other highlights include the June 4 world premiere of André Previn’s Concerto for Orchestra, which was commissioned to mark the orchestra’s 100th year and will be recorded on the Naxos label. Celebrations conclude on June 18 with an evening of stories and symphonic highlights from the orchestra’s first century.

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SUMMER 2022

THE SCORE

Wallace Foundation Report: Black Perspectives on the Arts The Wallace Foundation has published “A Place to be Heard, a Space to Feel Held: Black Perspectives on Creativity, Trustworthiness, Welcome and Well-Being,” a study that explores cultural and creative preferences among Black communities. The report covers some of the experiences and perspectives that Black and African American adults in the U.S. have in relation to cultural

engagement, digital connection with arts and culture, and social change. Among the findings, respondents report that they most value arts experiences and organizations that celebrate Black creativity; support self-care, which respondents say is especially important in Black communities; make a sustained commitment to earn Black communities’ trust; and foster a sense of belonging. Findings in the report suggest themes that could help arts organizations build more meaningful relationships with Black communities. The qualitative study was prepared by Slover Linett Audience Research in association with LaPlaca Cohen and Yancey Consulting. Learn more at https://tinyurl.com/A-Place-tobe-Heard.

New Reports from the League on EDI and Repertoire The League of American Orchestras continues to provide research and information about—and for—orchestras. The League’s new Catalyst Snapshot Reports, scheduled for publication in June, tell the stories of seven League-member orchestras that put equity, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of their work. The Snapshot orchestras participated in the Catalyst Fund, the League’s re-granting program that awarded annual grants to help U.S.-based orchestras advance equity, diversity, and inclusion. The Snapshot Reports demonstrate how individual orchestras are putting Catalyst’s “Promising Practices” into action, and offer practical guidance and resources for the entire orchestra field.

The 2022 Orchestra Repertoire Report, to be published this summer by the Institute for Composer Diversity in partnership with the League, will examine orchestras’ programming of works by women and non-binary composers and composers of color, both living and deceased, from 2015 to 2022. The information for the 2022 data was gathered directly from the websites of 133 orchestras. The Orchestra Repertoire Report shows how orchestras are responding to issues of our time in the works they play; it lists all works performed in the 20212022 season and includes tips about best practices in inclusive programming. Visit americanorchestras.org for updates.

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

9

THE SCORE

League Advocacy Update The League of American Orchestras’ two-person Washington D.C. office speaks up for orchestras before Congress, the White House, and federal agencies, represents orchestras in broad coalition efforts across the nonprofit and creative sectors, and helps individual orchestras build their capacity to make the case for the orchestral artform and its impact on communities nationwide. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a new wave of advocacy needs for orchestras in addition to longstanding policy priorities.

Maximizing Access to COVID-19 Relief In a late-February 2022 League survey, 90 percent of responding orchestras reported that federal relief had a significant impact on their ability to maintain their workforce and performance activity. The League was a leading voice in Congress and to the Administration, advancing policy requests to ensure that pandemic relief programs would include eligibility for orchestras and the wider arts and nonprofit sectors. Through online learning events, newsletters, and one-to-one assistance, the League has helped orchestras to access all forms of federal aid.

Among those programs, the Small Business Administration’s Shuttered Venue Operators Grants have so far supported 339 orchestras in 48 states—for a total of more than $265 million in relief funds for orchestras. In addition, dedicated National Endowment for the Arts funding, forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans, Employee Retention Tax Credits, enhanced charitable giving incentives, Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, and other forms of governmental assistance have helped orchestras through the pandemic. One League survey respondent stated, “These funds enabled us to retain all orchestra members throughout the entire time since the pandemic started. They allowed us to continue concert performances (with drastically reduced audience sizes), perform socially distanced concerts in the community, continue our education program, and further develop our virtual concert capabilities.”

Seeking Recovery Resources The newest data on the economic impact of the arts sector is in the current Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account, released in March 2022 by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts. The report illustrates the toll of the pandemic on live performing arts while also charting the important role of the arts in our nation’s economic recovery. Among the findings: “Performing arts presenters and performing arts companies joined oil drilling/ exploration and air transportation as the steepest-declining areas of the U.S. economy in 2020.”

SVOG grants to orchestras total more than $265 million, reaching 339 orchestras in 48 states Given the lasting impact of the pandemic on earned revenue, the need for ongoing relief persists—and orchestras are essential partners in communities’ economic and civic recovery. As Congress considers new COVID-19 relief measures as well as investments in workforce development and infrastructure, the League is rallying orchestras to continue to speak up to elected officials. For near-term recovery, reinstating access to the Employee Retention Tax Credit for the last quarter of 2021 tops the list. Also on the list: extending the time for Shuttered Venue Operators Grant recipients to spend their awards, reinstating enhanced charitable giving incentives, and getting other forms of recovery assistance across the finish line in Congress.

In written testimony submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the League called on Congress to expand charitable giving incentives and enact urgently needed policies to support orchestras and the wider nonprofit sector. In the March 17 “Examining Charitable Giving and Trends in the Nonprofit Sector” hearing, bipartisan members of the Senate’s leading tax policy committee expressed support for reinstating and expanding the Universal Charitable Deduction, which expired at the end of 2021. Orchestras can continue to describe how their nonprofit missions advance vibrant artistry, community partnerships, and a commitment to lifelong learning, and to ask for Congressional action on tax policies that support orchestras and their workforce.

Supporting a New Rhythm of Artistry As international travel restrictions due to COVID-19 are lifted, cross-border concert activity is returning, and government policies concerning online and global music events are once again a central focus for orchestras.

For orchestras that present international artists as performers, the League’s artistsfromabroad.org website, visa help desk, and policy engagement with the U.S. State Department and Citizenship and Immigration services are helping orchestras ensure that concerts can go on as planned. International policy talks have brought the League back to the table to represent global music interests in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which sets policies for how musicians can travel with instruments containing rosewood,

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reptile skin, tortoise shell, and small bits of ivory. In partnership with the National Association of Music Merchants, the League participated in negotiations in Lyon, France in March 2022, advancing policy requests to improve the Musical Instrument Certificate, and encourage ongoing exemptions for activity with musical instruments that does not pose a threat to species protected by international treaties.

As the pandemic continues, orchestras are offering both in-person and online performances. At the start of the 2021-22 season, 57 percent of orchestras responding to a League survey reported that they intend to stream events. However, automated copyright “bots” on some platforms are erroneously confusing orchestra performances for copyrighted recordings, disrupting the streamed event. The League provided data to support the Orchestra Music Licensing Association’s submission of comments to the U.S. Copyright Office seeking solutions to prevent further disruption of orchestra streaming activity and bringing forward examples and facts from U.S. orchestras.

These activities represent just some of the ways the League increases support for orchestras and the creative sector. Learn more about the League’s full array of policy issues, advocacy resources, and direct assistance for member orchestras in the Advocate section of americanorchestras.org.

Knoxville Emergence

Trianne Newbrey

Most of the time, a soloist performing with an orchestra enters the stage and takes a brief bow right before the musicmaking begins. At the Knoxville Symphony’s April world premiere of Michael Schachter’s violin concerto “Cycle of Life,” Tessa Lark began the performance seated among the musicians and was only revealed as soloist in the second movement, appropriately named “Emergence,” when she stood up and slowly walked from within the violin section to the front of the stage at the Tennessee Theatre. (The work’s movements are “Primordial,” “Emergence,” “Flight,” “Desire,” “Tree of Life,” “Contemplation,” and “Sky.”) Music Director Aram Demirjian led the performance, which also featured Rachmaninoff ’s Symphony No. 2. The Schachter concerto—planned for 2020 but delayed due to the pandemic—was commissioned by the KSO, with support from the Knoxville Museum of Art and individual donors. The inspiration behind the piece comes from Richard Jolley’s glass-and-steel installation at the Knoxville Museum of Art called “Cycle of Life: Within the Power of Dreams and the Wonder of Infinity.”

Tessa Lark emerged from within the violin section in the second movement of the Knoxville Symphony’s world premiere of Michael Schachter’s “Cycle of Life” concerto.

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THE SCORE

IN MEMORIAM: ANNE PARSONS

Doug Coombe

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

LONGTIME DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESIDENT AND CEO

Anne Parsons welcomed delegates to the League of American Orchestra’s 2017 National Conference, which was hosted by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Anne Parsons, at right, with (from left) Erik Rönmark, Mark Davidoff, and Jader Bignamini, who is shown signing his contract as music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, January 2020.

Anne Parsons, a respected leader in the orchestra field who served as president and CEO of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for more than 17 years, died on March 28, 2022, from lung cancer. She was 64 years old. Parsons was a longtime friend of the League of American Orchestras: she was in the first class of the League’s Orchestra Management Fellowship Program, a member of the Board of Directors, and had recently been elected to the League’s Emeritus Board.

Prior to joining the Detroit Symphony, she was general manager of New York City Ballet, general manager of the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and orchestra manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Parsons began her career at the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College in Massachusetts. Parsons successfully navigated the DSO through extraordinary challenges—a national economic downturn, the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy, a musicians’ strike, and the pandemic—while forging a culture of resilience and financial stability and expanding the orchestra’s audience and donor base. Under her leadership, the DSO posted operating surpluses from 2013 to 2021. Parsons hired two music directors—Leonard Slatkin in 2007 and Jader Bignamini in 2020— and brought the DSO to widespread attention through touring and webcasts. She also diversified the DSO’s programming and launched several equity and inclusion initiatives. Parsons retired from the DSO in December 2021.

“Anne Parsons was a legend in the orchestra field, and her impact is almost impossible to overstate,” said League President and CEO Simon Woods. “In addition to being an institutional and civic leader of tremendous vision, Anne was known across the orchestra profession as someone who led from culture—and it was through cultural transformation and humanity that she led the Detroit Symphony from a time of severe challenges to becoming one of the country’s most vibrant orchestral institutions. She was also a role model to many people: to those who aspired to leadership positions and to those already in leadership positions who aspired to her levels of skill, finesse, and authenticity. She was a longtime friend of the League, sitting on our Board of Directors, and elected in recent months to our Emeritus Board. We mourn her loss, but we celebrate with gratitude everything she brought us and to our field.”

Detroit Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Erik Rönmark and Board Chair Mark Davidoff issued a joint statement: “Anne led the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with grace, courage, and conviction, never wavering from her strongly held belief that the DSO is the best in the world, and that Detroit is a vibrant and resilient city that deserves an orchestra to match. Anne’s accomplishments as our president and CEO are immeasurable and will resonate deeply within our organization, across our local communities, and in the orchestra world for decades to come.” Music Director Jader Bignamini commented, “I am honored to have been appointed music director during Anne’s tenure as CEO and to have been able to become close with her, Donald, and Cara. I will never forget Anne’s smile, strength, professionalism, deep humility, and innate sensitivity. Her love for the orchestra and Detroit is our guide as we lead the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.”

The DSO celebrated Parsons’ life and accomplishments with a free concert at Orchestra Hall on May 17. Jader Bignamini led a program of music that held a special connection to Parsons. The DSO musicians donated their services for the concert.

Parsons is survived by her husband, Donald Dietz, and a daughter, Cara Dietz.

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Musical Chairs Australia’s Queensland Symphony Orchestra has named YARMILA ALFONZETTI as chief executive, effective July 11.

The Munich Philharmonic in Germany has appointed NAOKA AOKI as concertmaster, the first woman to hold that position at the orchestra since its founding in 1893.

The Manhattan School of Music has selected violinist/conductor DAVID CHAN to lead its orchestral performance graduate program.

Chan is concertmaster at the Metropolitan Opera and music director of New Jersey’s APEX Ensemble and the New York City-based Camerata Notturna.

summer. He retains his post as music director of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

The Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra in Alabama has selected NATASSIA PERRINE as executive director.

LAURA REYNOLDS has been appointed to the newly created position of vice president of impact and innovation at the San Diego Symphony.

SHIRA SAMUELS-SHRAGG has been named assistant conductor of the Plano Symphony Orchestra in Texas, effective in August.

At Connecticut’s Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Executive Director STEVE COLLINS has a new title: president and CEO. The newly formed Learning and Social Impact Department (formerly the DEI, Education and Community Engagement Department) will be led by Director TIMOTHY BROWN and Assistant Manager JENNIFER PHIPPS.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra appointed STUART STEPHENSON as principal trumpet. MATTHEW SINNO joins the DSO as associate principal viola, and HAYLEY GRAINGER as associate principal flute.

Francisco Fullana, violin

Gabriela Martinez, piano

Kinan Azmeh, clarinet Melissa White, violin

The APEX Ensemble, based in Montclair, New Jersey, has appointed DIEGO GARCIA as the first director of its Youth Program, which will launch this fall.

ILYA GIDALEVICH, the Cleveland Orchestra’s director of artistic planning, has been promoted to vice president, artistic planning. MICHAEL GANDLMAYR has been hired as artistic administrator.

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has added two new artistic partners: cellist ABEL SELAOCOE and violist TABEA ZIMMERMANN.

Nicholas Canellakis, cello

NELL FLANDERS has been named artistic director and conductor of the Idaho StateCivic Symphony and Idaho State University Chamber Orchestra, effective in fall 2022.

The Florida Orchestra has appointed CHELSEA GALLO as assistant conductor, effective with the 2022-23 season.

The Salina Symphony in Kansas has chosen YANIV SEGAL as music director.

Juan-Miguel Hernandez, viola

Michael Brown, piano

Canellakis-Brown Duo, cello & piano

Carter Brey, cello

Composer JONATHAN BAILEY HOLLAND has been named chair of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Music, effective August 1.

Symphony NH, based in Nashua, New Hampshire, has named DEANNA HOYING executive director.

The Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania has named NATALIE ANN KASIEVICH as executive director.

Harlem Quartet, string quartet Rolston String Quartet, string quartet

Amy Porter, flute

Trio Virado, flute, viola, guitar

Composer GEORGE LEWIS has been named artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has appointed NA’ZIR McFADDEN as assistant conductor, effective with the 2022-23 season.

ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE has been named music director of California’s Bear Valley Music Festival, effective this

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Marianne Sciolino CEO & Founder marianne@samnyc.us I 646.391.5517

Piotr Gajewski, conductor

Katie Masterson Booking & Operations Manager katie@samnyc.us I 732.379.1717

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FORWARD TOGETHER

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Craig T.-Mathew/Mathew Imaging

The pandemic has been a time of unprecedented collaborative learning among orchestras, as they have worked together across the country to find solutions to daunting challenges. But the post-pandemic environment will require orchestras to go even further, asking deep questions about internal alignment and finding ways to integrate departmental goals and organizational aspirations with new clarity.

Simon Woods, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras

By Simon Woods

W

hen we were considering a title for the League’s 2022 National Conference in Los Angeles, we were drawn to the words “forward together” to express the intense need we were sensing in the field for people to gather and consider the future together after a tumultuous two years.

But as Conference approached and I sat down to write this column, I started to sense even more weight in those two words than I had initially imagined.

We all know that we are stronger when we learn together. We benefit from learning about others’ achievements as well as their failures, from testing ideas together, exploring new angles, and reflecting on impacts missed as well as those achieved. But however much can be learned from other organizations, orchestras still need to ask themselves if their own internal alignment is robust enough to face down the uncertainty ahead.

For a keynote address at the Association of California Symphony Orchestras’ online conference last year, I delved into this issue by looking at job descriptions posted by orchestras on the League’s Job Center. In particular, I was curious to see if I could discern organization-wide commitments to broadening the reach of the art

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form and diversifying audiences.

Of course, in smaller organizations, more responsibilities are covered by single individuals, providing a greater possibility for integration among job functions. But in larger organizations, where the pressure to deliver individual departmental financial results is at its most acute, I found surprisingly little evidence of crossover.

In general, marketing job descriptions barely hinted that ticket selling could also be a communityrelational activity as well as a technical and financial function. Every marketer knows that the highest return on investment (and the best chance of meeting stringent goals with limited resources) is to focus on those closest to the center of the target. “If we could persuade every audience member to come one additional time during the season, our audience decline would be arrested in its tracks” is how I have often heard it articulated. And with the knowledge

We all know that we are stronger when we learn together.

The siloed management functions many of us grew up with are unlikely to be fit for purpose in the world we’re now entering. that selling a ticket to a new audience member can cost many times more than selling to an existing attendee, what incentive is there to spend money on long-term audience development? Put another way, a unique marketing focus on existing demographics is a “feature, not a bug,” but brings with it the risk that in the future we will simply be trying to harvest more and more revenue from a dwindling percentage of the population The Conference elective session led

by David Snead entitled Diversifying Audiences with Research and Relevance will be fascinating in this regard.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, community engagement job descriptions seemed to imply little connectivity with strategies in other

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It’s time for artistic planners, marketing directors, and community engagement directors to sit around a table before committing a single program to paper and ask: “What does our community want and need from us? How do we build a future audience following a pandemic that has disrupted attendance habits? How might our individual goals better align in service of longer-term institutional growth?” departments to build a long-term sustainable base of support for their organizations. Education and community teams work with tremendous heart and authenticity to listen more than they talk and find ways to engage people in personally fulfilling ways. But can the arrow of community engagement really not lead into audience development?

There is a spectrum of wealth capacity within the communities we engage with, and there are many from those communities who would like to come to our halls both as ticket buyers and donors. But the participation we hope for will never occur unless we work harder than ever on creating a welcoming environment for all, not just for the seasoned traditional audience. Relationships matter. In a recent study, researcher and writer Colleen Dilenschneider reported that orchestras have “an overall perception of being much less welcoming than other organization types [and] the percentage of the US population that does not feel welcome has grown.” (Italics are mine.)

I am reminded of a quote I heard from a community member not so long ago, which is simple and powerful: “if

The breakthrough results that our field craves are most likely to reveal themselves through our collaborative learning.

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you want us to come to your stuff, you need to come to our stuff.” Creating increased points of connection between community engagement and audience development represents a tremendous opportunity for our field.

And let’s consider artistic planning positions. My sense is that success in those roles is still often measured on quality of press reviews, organizational prestige, and affirmation of the board and music director. But in years of teaching artistic planning, I often stole the line from nutritionists who say “we are what we eat” by reminding people that “we are what we play!” No decisions are more fertile for our long-term goals of inclusion and audience growth than what we play on stage and who plays it, but the power is only unleashed when it is tightly aligned with broader goals, rather than being driven exclusively by abstract artistic values.

The good news is that orchestras have probably never spent as much time or energy thinking about the broader meaning of their artistic planning decisions as they are today, and the League’s evolving Catalyst initiatives have been important drivers of this work (see “Welcoming Innovation and Inclusion in Orchestras” elsewhere in this issue). It’s genuinely exciting to watch the changes occur, and at the League, we are shortly launching a major project to report these changes from the perspective of hard data.

My anecdotal conclusion is that orchestras’ future strategic success will probably require more long-horizon, joined-up goals to be reflected in every job description across organizations. The siloed management functions many of us grew up with are unlikely to be fit for

purpose in the world we’re now entering.

In his inspiring keynote at the League’s online 2021 Conference, Marc Bamuthi Joseph from the Kennedy Center implored us: “Tie your organizational growth to your region’s social growth. Your program is in service of your social vision.”

Bamuthi’s job title tells us a lot: Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact. The revelation here is that the Kennedy Center views artistic vision as inextricable from social impact. As we emerge from the pandemic, there is urgency for artistic planners, marketing directors, and community engagement directors to sit around a table before committing a single program to paper and ask themselves questions like: “What does our community want and need from us next season? How do we build a future audience following a pandemic that has disrupted decades of attendance habits?

And how might our individual business goals better align in service of longerterm institutional growth?”

“Forward together” is a state of mind. It asserts that the breakthrough results that our field craves are most likely to reveal themselves through our collaborative learning. But it also reminds us of the need to create intense internal alignment around our goals. As the pandemic recedes in the rear-view mirror, the challenge of building new audiences will increasingly take over the entire field of vision in our windshields.

This is an existential issue for our field that can only be tackled by organizations together—and by leaders together within those organizations.

We look forward to exploring these themes with you at our Conference in Los Angeles and in the years to come!

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Board Room

California States of Mind

California is a big place, home to orchestras of every size and description. These ensembles’ missions, circumstances, successes, and challenges are as wide-ranging as the state itself, yet they share commonalities with orchestras everywhere. What do board leaders at several California orchestras see as today’s key issues—for themselves and the field at large?

By Steven Brown

A

s the League of American Orchestras’ National Conference takes place in Los Angeles this June, board chairs at orchestras from across California share what’s on their minds—including coming back from the pandemic, enjoying or dreaming of new venues, determining the roles of their boards, and embracing innovation and inclusion.

Thomas L. Beckmen, Los Angeles Philharmonic Los Angeles Philharmonic Association

Orchestras across the United States face opportunities and challenges. But the difference among the issues that orchestras of different sizes face is just a matter of magnitude, says Thomas L. Beckmen, board chair of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, host orchestra of the League’s 2022 National Conference.

He lays out some of today’s big issues for orchestras, asking: “How do you connect artistic excellence with social relevance, the heritage of the past with contemporary culture and innovation? How do you function locally, even hyper-locally, and also globally? And how do you meet financial needs across the organization, today and ten years from now?”

Beckmen and his wife donated the funds to create the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center, which was designed by Frank Gehry and opened last fall in a converted bank. The center 18

“How do you connect artistic excellence with social relevance, the heritage of the past with contemporary culture and innovation?

How do you function locally, even hyper-locally, and also globally?” – Thomas L. Beckmen, Los Angeles Philharmonic is the linchpin of YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), a program the LA Phil launched in 2007. Now serving more than 1,500 budding musicians in several communities, the 15-year-old YOLA serves notice that the LA Phil helped lead the way in orchestras’ focus on community and diversity. Pursuing those values never ends. “There is always work to be done to ensure equity and inclusion and serve the people of Los Angeles. The staff, orchestra, and board created and adopted an EDI Guiding Statement and it is the lens that we use as we do all our work,” Beckmen says. “We try to remain aware that we are engaged with communities—plural—so we respect differences at the same time as we find common ground. It’s not about benchmarks reached so much as commitments lived.”

When the pandemic forced the LA Phil, along with other ensembles nationwide, to go into lockdown, it “impacted our orchestra deeply,” Beckmen says.

But the orchestra’s fundraising sustained it. “We received incredible moral and financial support from our patrons and friends,” he explains. “It was clear that so many of us were missing live music

and wanted the LA Phil to return even stronger.”

When concerts resumed, he continues, “our attendance had a slow and steady start. That said, attendance has been increasing and the last couple of weeks we have been nearly sold out at Walt Disney Concert Hall.”

Even as it builds back from the pandemic, the LA Phil “continues to push itself ” artistically, Beckmen says.

He points to the orchestra’s April concert performances of Beethoven’s Fidelio, which featured sign-language actors from Los Angeles’ Deaf West Theatre. “This was innovation of the most meaningful kind,” Beckmen says, “undertaken not for the sake of innovation itself, but to explore the nature of the work and directly, powerfully address the hearts and minds of today’s audiences.”

Linda Burroughs, Santa Cruz Symphony Santa Cruz Symphony

The Santa Cruz Symphony is a small organization in a small community, Board President Linda Burroughs says.

And it has a very small staff. Guess who takes up the slack. “I call this a working board, where we contribute a lot of our time to help out however we can at the staff level—so that we don’t have to burden our budget with hiring more people to do the job we can do as volunteers,” SUMMER 2022

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“The one thing I think is critical for the longevity of our organization is to keep our board membership inspired and growing. We’re trying to get younger, more diverse people on our board.”

– Linda Burroughs, Santa Cruz Symphony Burroughs says. That starts with helping build back the orchestra’s attendance after the pandemic.

Attendance currently stands at around 60 percent, rather than the 90 to 100 percent that prevailed before the pandemic. Lingering caution due to COVID-19 is driving the shortfall, Burroughs explains. She doesn’t want to just wait for the wary to return, though. She prods the board to help expand the audience. “We can do that through our own participation with friends of neighbors of ours,” she says. At a recent meeting, “I mentioned to our board that we each have the capacity to bring two new people to each concert,” and she went through the math: With 23 board members times two guests per program times six programs a season—five classical and one pops—that could amount to more than 200 newcomers a year. “If even half of them buy season tickets, we’ve done our job as board members,” Burroughs recalls telling the group.

She lauds the staff ’s commitment, the musicians’ abilities, and Music Director Daniel Stewart’s devotion to fresh, diverse programming. But she focuses—necessarily—on the board. “The one thing I think is critical for the longevity of our organization is to keep our board membership inspired and growing,” Burroughs says. “We’re trying to get younger, more diverse people on our board. My feeling is that everyone has their sphere of influence. If we can use that sphere of influence to attract more people to concerts and to become contributors, we’ll continue to grow and thrive.”

The orchestra would thrive even more, Burroughs thinks, if it had a new concert hall to replace Santa Cruz’s aging, acoustically middling Civic Auditorium. She has a vision: the Santa Cruz Warriors, a training team for the Golden State Warriors basketball powerhouse, is planning to build a new arena, and BurAMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

roughs hopes it can be designed to double as a concert hall. “We’ve been talking [with them] for years, and it’s finally to the point that it looks like it’s going to happen,” she says. “I’m wondering how an acoustician can overcome the obstacles. You’ve got to think outside the box.”

Corinne Byrd, Santa Rosa Symphony Santa Rosa Symphony

Despite sitting in northern California’s wildfire-prone Sonoma County, the Santa Cruz Symphony and its hometown have recently enjoyed a run of good luck. “Fortunately, in 2021 we had a reprieve from evacuations and nearby area fires,” Board Chair Corinne Byrd says. That has let the group turn to happier subjects, such as sending the Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra to Spain this summer. Otherwise, the orchestra’s leaders face the same questions that confront their colleagues nationwide. “Can we rebuild the audiences to pre-pandemic levels?” Byrd asks. “Will musicians and audience members feel safe attending live performances with mask mandates lifted in many places?

Will individual board members and community donors with wealth continue to step up and donate?”

Since March 2020, Byrd says, the orchestra’s mantra has been Plan and Adjust. Donations have provided a bright spot: “Who would have figured in the midst of COVID that we would end up with contributed revenue at all-time highs, with more new donors than ever before?” Now, with federal and state pandemic aid waning, the orchestra has to forge a “sustainable growth model,”

“Experiencing and hearing music is healing and transformative. We just need to keep messaging that, keep educating young musicians, keep offering high-quality music with consistently exciting and innovative programming.” – Corinne Byrd, Santa Rosa Symphony

she says. Subscription sales for next season are up and encouraging, and the orchestra’s goal is to reach pre-pandemic attendance levels—ticket sales at about 75 percent of capacity—by the 2023-24 fiscal year.

Sonoma County’s population is 30 percent Latinx, Byrd points out, and the orchestra is engaging the community through its programming. In June, the Santa Rosa Symphony will give the world premiere of Los Braceros—in English, The Workers—a cantata for mariachi musicians and orchestra by Mexican composer Enrico Chapela Barba. Thinking of the future, the orchestra runs educational programs that reach 30,000 students a year.

“Experiencing and hearing music is healing and transformative,” Byrd says.

“We just need to keep messaging that, keep educating a generation of young musicians, keep offering high-quality music with consistently exciting and innovative programming, and keep finding new avenues to appeal to, and be relevant to our audience.”

Mary Eichbauer, Vallejo Symphony Vallejo Symphony

The timing of the pandemic lockdown was especially frustrating for the Vallejo Symphony.

The orchestra had just expanded from single to double performances of its programs, Board President Mary Eichbauer says, and “we were on the way up in gaining exposure, audience, reach and funding. Now we’re working on getting back to where we were and starting again from there.”

The orchestra’s 2021-22 season couldn’t begin until this April. Yet while attendance at the opening program was a bit smaller than the pre-COVID norm, Eichbauer recalls, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt such an electric sense of excitement in the hall. People were so glad to see each other and to be there enjoying the music together.”

When the current season ends, the orchestra will launch a strategic-planning 19

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process “to discuss what our future will look like,” she says. Since the orchestra’s hometown of Vallejo, north of San Francisco, is one of the most diverse cities in the United States, broadening the group’s reach will be a prime topic. “Just formulating a statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion made us realize how far we, and most orchestras, are from the ideal,” Eichbauer says. Some steps are obvious: “The board could and should be more diverse. We’re working on it. But we’re happy to have added younger people with a diversity of talents” already.

As someone who fell in love with music thanks to free tickets given out by the New York Philharmonic, Eichbauer says, “I’ve always thought one of the best ways to reach the heart of a community is to engage and excite its youth.” Toward that end, the orchestra is working to launch an educational project this fall that the pandemic delayed, dubbed Sound Explorers! A composer in residence will teach middle-school students about writing music—in whatever style they like—and the Vallejo Symphony will perform the youngsters’ creations.

At the same time, the orchestra is turning toward a professional staff, including a part-time executive director who came on board before the pandemic.

“We haven’t been able to hire as much staff as we really need, so the board is still involved in a very hands-on way,” Eichbauer says. “I’d like to change that, so that the board can fulfill its primary function, which is fundraising.”

In fact, Eichbauer plays another role.

She’s a rare—if not unique—example of a board chair who doubles as program annotator. “I don’t know if I’m the only board chair who does that,” she says.

“Somehow I doubt it! It’s something I really enjoy doing—it’s a way of connecting personally with our audience by telling them what the music means to me.”

“We haven’t been able to hire as much staff as we really need, so the board is still involved in a very hands-on way. I’d like to change that, so that the board can fulfill its primary function.” – Mary Eichbauer, Vallejo Symphony

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John R. Evans, Pacific Symphony Pacific Symphony

The Pacific Symphony sits in a diverse region—and knows it. Celebrations of the Chinese New Year and subsequent Lantern Festival are annual traditions; the orchestra added an observance of Nawruz, the Persian new year, in 2019.

The board has long included members of Asian and other communities. Nevertheless, the orchestra is carrying out a top-to-bottom examination of its equity, diversity, and inclusion.

“Of course, there were blind spots we had, as any organization would—as well-intentioned as they are,” Board Chair John R. Evans says. “We’re trying to uncover those blind spots and be more sensitive.” The orchestra is in the midst of a study that looks at topics ranging from serving diverse schools and communities to expanding the orchestra members’ diversity within the framework of blind auditions. (A grant from the League of American Orchestras’ Catalyst Fund has helped support the study.)

The Pacific Symphony’s board has “always been familial,” says Evans, who has served on it for 35 years. “We’ve always been devoted to making something better in our community, rather than worrying about social status or any of that—or else I wouldn’t have stayed around so long.” The pandemic put that commitment to the test. “The axiom that hardship tells us who we really are, makes people overcome difficulties and [builds] character—–I think that has happened with our symphony,” Evans says. He cites the example—not the only one, he says—of a board member who called to make a six-figure donation because she wanted to help the musicians get through a difficult time. She asked for no recognition.

Despite cases like that, the orchestra’s overall contributions declined during the pandemic. Now, “we’re rebuilding that,” Evans says. The orchestra has ended mask requirements, so the concert-hall atmosphere is “feeling like it used to.” He aims to maintain the we’re-

“The axiom that hardship tells us who we really are, makes people overcome difficulties and [builds] character—I think that has happened with our symphony.” – John R. Evans, Pacific Symphony in-this-together attitude that blossomed during the pandemic. “When the [orchestra’s] office was closed, I showed up anyway,” Evans recalls. “Seven or eight staff members were there, trying to keep things together. We just stood in the foyer and spoke with one another, expressing our appreciation for each other. It was informal and impromptu. But it was one of those bonding movements that let us know how we feel about each other. It was a nice experience, and it defined that we’re a close organization.”

Harold W. Fuson Jr., San Diego Symphony San Diego Symphony

The San Diego Symphony takes pride in the sleek outdoor venue it opened last summer: the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, overlooking the city’s waterfront.

Now the orchestra is deep in a second construction project, renovating its 1929-vintage main home. With Copley Symphony Hall closed until next year, the ensemble is shuttling among the Rady Shell and temporary indoor locations across the area.

“The effect of both of these projects has been to introduce a huge amount of uncertainty into our financial situation,” says Harold W. Fuson Jr., the orchestra’s board chair. While COVID-19 barely affected the turnout at the outdoor Rady Shell, attendance indoors suggests “reluctance to come back”—partly because of virus wariness, Fuson thinks, and partly because people “have been gone for a year, and they’ve found other things to do.” And even with the best planning, the ongoing cost of running two venues remains to be seen. “It will take another couple of years before we get to a point where we’re confident that our business model will support the kind of orchesSUMMER 2022

BOARD RO OM

“If you don’t make sure the issues are addressed, you’re sooner or later going to pay heavier and heavier prices.

Part of that price is that orchestras like ours aren’t going to exist anymore.”

– Harold W. Fuson Jr., San Diego Symphony tra that we believe San Diego needs,” Fuson says. What will be the bridge as the situation becomes clear? “The key is to generate enough revenue from the [Rady] Shell to keep our business model working,” Fuson says. By accommodating a wide range of classical and popular music—as well as people mainly looking for a night out in an attractive setting—it can bring in revenue and at the same time help diversify the orchestra’s audience.

For an orchestra whose hometown is “a point of connection to Central America and South America, we need to do a better job relating to those cultures,” Fuson says. The orchestra’s music director, Rafael Payare, is a Venezuelan with African ancestry, Fuson notes, and “we’ve been able to find quote-unquote minority board members—but not as many as we’d like to have.”

But his orchestra—and others— must keep trying. “It’s a little like climate change, in that you can sort of look the other way for a period of time,” Fuson says. “But if you don’t make sure the issues are addressed, you’re sooner or later going to pay heavier and heavier prices.

Part of that price is that orchestras like ours aren’t going to exist anymore.”

J. Stanley Sanders, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles

After an 18-month shutdown brought on by COVID-19, the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (ICYOLA) made its comeback in the limelight: its musicians played on the nationally telecast NFL Honors show during the run-up to February’s Super Bowl, and ensembles from the group played for a AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

few game-day events.

“That was a great way to restart our program,” Board Chair J. Stanley Sanders says. The orchestra, founded in 2009—one of the United States’ largest primarily African American orchestras— will resume regular performances in July, making its annual Walt Disney Concert Hall appearance for the first time since 2019. And it’s planning to restart its regular slate of concerts across the Los Angeles area.

Thanks to the Super Bowl boost— and “the philanthropy that has opened up” that Sanders says occurred in the wake of the national conversation about racial injustice—the orchestra has done well with fundraising. Not only has it balanced its budget and reinstated some paid staff positions it cut during the pandemic, but the group’s leaders are returning to plans they had shelved, such as a concert trip to Africa—perhaps as an exchange with a South African youth

Lives Matter movement endures. “A lot of Black Americans are convinced that it’s a flurry, and it [eventually] dies out,” Sanders says. Some of the group’s board members think “we’d better do as much as we can while the money is coming in, because in a year or two, people will forget, and these sources of funding will dry up.” But he’s more optimistic that society is undergoing a permanent change. “I’m 80 years old, and I’ve seen a lot,” Sanders says. “But I’m as hopeful as I’ve ever been that this is a different era.”

STEVEN BROWN is a Houston-based writer specializing in classical music and the arts. He previously served as classical music critic of the Orlando Sentinel, Charlotte Observer, and Houston Chronicle.

Through music, the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles “can make the point that we’re better off together than apart.” – J. Stanley Sanders, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles

orchestra. “There is a classical music tradition in the big urban areas of South Africa, and we think that would be a big and important gesture for an LAbased orchestra to make,” Sanders says.

ICYOLA’s young musicians also can be ambassadors at home, he adds, where Americans of different backgrounds have split off into “separate suburbs and separate compartments and separate streets.

In a lot of ways, we’re more segregated than we were before Brown v. Board of Education.”

Through music, Sanders adds, the orchestra “can make the point that we’re better off together than apart. ‘This is the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, and it’s here today to demonstrate the relationship between the Inner City of Los Angeles and the all-white city of Glendale,’ or wherever.”

Such plans may depend on whether the philanthropy inspired by the Black 21

For the last five years, the League of American Orchestras has made significant investments in innovation, and in equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Since 2017, the American Orchestras Futures Fund has awarded nearly $6 million in grants, allowing 65 Leaguemember orchestras to pilot new and innovative work, thanks to the generous support of the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. From a movable performance tent to a performance given by musicians playing together on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, Futures Fund grantees have tested new ideas and approaches that challenge our assumptions about what an orchestra can be. In the process of creating new art, finding new audiences, and developing new revenue streams, grantee orchestras report a welcome ability to adapt to the ever-changing demands of our time.

The Catalyst Pilot Fund was a response to an urgent need for orchestras to create solid organizational foundations for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) work. Many orchestras struggle to get started in this work, and to create a brave space for the difficult, ongoing conversations it requires, or to create the systems that build organizational momentum.

But since the pilot program launched in 2019, 49 orchestra grantees have been funded to hire EDI consultants to support them through this process of organizational transformation. The new Catalyst Incubator Fund builds on this success, making three-year grants to 20 orchestras and their communities. The League has designed the next phase of The Catalyst Fund to incorporate elements from technology incubator models, such as supporting the development of new ideas through mentorship and guidance, and connection to peer communities engaged in similar developmental processes. And at the same time, the learning from the Pilot Fund is now being shared with the whole field through a series of informative Catalyst Snapshots and “how to” Guides.

We want to thank the orchestras who have put themselves on the line to learn, experiment, accelerate innovation, and advance their organizations in the areas of equity, diversity, and inclusion—and to their contributions to field-wide learning.

Deep gratitude is due to the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation and the Mellon Foundation for their longstanding investments in the League and the orchestral field, and for their commitments to these programs that will continue to inspire innovation and change in America’s orchestras for decades to come. Additional thanks to the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation for its investment to make learning and networking opportunities possible for both the Catalyst Fund Pilot and Catalyst Incubator Fund grantees.

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Catalyst Incubator Orchestras COHORT A Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra The Louisville Orchestra Minnesota Orchestra San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory Stamford Symphony Winston-Salem Symphony Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra Youth Orchestras of San Antonio

COHORT B Charleston Symphony The Chicago Philharmonic Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestras Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Jacksonville Symphony Association Napa Valley Youth Symphony New Jersey Symphony Orchestra South Dakota Symphony Orchestra Symphony Tacoma Walla Walla Symphony

Catalyst Pilot Orchestras Adrian Symphony Orchestra Albany Symphony Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Berkeley Symphony BRAVO Youth Orchestras Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Chicago Sinfonietta Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Contemporary Youth Orchestra DC Youth Orchestra Program Detroit Symphony Orchestra East Texas Symphony Orchestra Empire State Youth Orchestra Grand Rapids Symphony Grant Park Music Festival Handel and Haydn Society

Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra Kennett Symphony Lexington Philharmonic Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Los Angeles Philharmonic Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Minnesota Orchestra Nashville Symphony New Haven Symphony Orchestra New Jersey Symphony Orchestra New Jersey Youth Symphony New World Symphony New York Philharmonic North Carolina Symphony

Oakland Symphony Oregon Symphony Pacific Symphony The Philadelphia Orchestra Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Princeton Symphony Orchestra Richmond Symphony The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra San Diego Symphony Orchestra San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory San Francisco Symphony Seattle Symphony South Dakota Symphony Orchestra St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Virginia Symphony Orchestra

Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra Greensboro Symphony Orchestra Handel and Hayden Society Houston Symphony Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles InterSchool Orchestras of New York Knoxville Symphony Lexington Philharmonic Lima Symphony Los Angeles Philharmonic Lubbock Symphony Minnesota Orchestra Nashville Symphony National Orchestral Institute + Festival (NOI+F) at the University of Maryland National Repertory Orchestra New Bedford Symphony New Haven Symphony Orchestra New Jersey Youth Symphony New World Symphony New York Philharmonic New York Youth Symphony Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra

Oakland Symphony Orchestra 2001 Orchestra of St. Luke’s Oregon Symphony Pacific Symphony The Phoenix Symphony Portland (ME) Symphony Orchestra Project 440 Richmond Symphony The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra San Diego Symphony San Diego Youth Orchestra and Conservatory San Francisco Symphony Seattle Symphony Symphony Tacoma Toledo Symphony Tulsa Symphony Orchestra Utah Symphony Virginia Symphony Orchestra Youth Orchestras of San Antonio

Futures Fund Orchestras Akron Symphony Albany Symphony American Composers Orchestra American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras Augusta Symphony Boise Philharmonic Boston Landmarks Orchestra Boston Modern Orchestra Project Boston Symphony Orchestra Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras Boulder Philharmonic California Symphony Central Ohio Symphony The Cleveland Orchestra Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Contemporary Youth Orchestra Dallas Symphony Orchestra Detroit Symphony Orchestra El Paso Symphony Orchestra Empire State Youth Orchestra Eugene Symphony Evansville Philharmonic

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

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LEADING PERSPECTIVES

What do orchestra managers need to succeed today? A new book by Travis Newton, Orchestra Management Handbook: Building Relationships in Turbulent Times, offers a guide to a career in this demanding, rewarding field.

In Orchestra Management Handbook: Building Relationships in Turbulent Times, Travis Newton, a professor of music at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, gives anyone contemplating a career in orchestra management a head start. Published in February by Oxford University Press, the book offers practical strategies, tools, discussions, resources, and advice, as well as case studies about innovative practices at orchestras across the country. An alumnus of the League of American Orchestras’ Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar, Newton has worked in orchestra management and arts administration, including posts as the Florida Orchestra’s operations director and roles at the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra as operations manager, education manager, and director of community engagement. For the Orchestra Management Handbook, Newton interviewed administrators at more than 70 U.S. orchestras to get their perspectives. The following excerpt outlines some of the themes covered in the book.

This excerpt from Orchestra Management Handbook: Building Relationships in Turbulent Times is reprinted by permission. Copyright © 2022. Written by Travis Newton and published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Find the book at amazon.com/Orchestra-Management-Handbook-Relationships-Turbulent/ dp/0197550673.

T

hroughout the course of any given day, an orchestra manager can, and will, be faced with challenges from all sides—a board member who needs attention and guidance, a music director whose schedule has been upended by another orchestra, a patron who was spoken to rudely by an usher at the prior weekend’s concert, a donor who has been cultivated for months whose gift is anticipated but not yet received, a staff member who receives an attractive job offer at another organization but is a tremendous asset to the orchestra.

Or: a global pandemic that immediately halts the act of gathering large groups together indoors—the very mechanism 24

that has historically enabled orchestras to deliver value to their communities.

Many of these challenges, whether short-term, long-term, internal, external, or existential, have faced orchestra managers since the beginning of the art form, and they will continue to face those who make the orchestra enterprise their life’s work, alongside new challenges that will arise in the 21st century.

For example, increased awareness of systemic racism in the United States has recently prompted orchestras to examine their policies, practices, and assumptions, and these efforts are highly relevant to each and every aspect of orchestra manSUMMER 2022

Travis Newton, author of Orchestra Management Handbook: Building Relationships in Turbulent Times.

agement. This book aims to not only be a resource to those in the field who need practical tools; it will also provide a unifying framework, encouraging orchestra managers to conceptualize these challenges holistically....

Effectively establishing, nurturing, maintaining, growing, and deepening relationships leads to what orchestra managers need most—trust.… In both our personal and professional lives, we know that trust is gained over time, when it is clear to both parties that the other side has earned their trust—in other words, they are trustworthy.

When viewed through this relationship-oriented lens with trust as the desired outcome, it becomes quite clear to orchestra managers why it makes no sense to expect someone who has

Increased awareness of systemic racism in the United States has recently prompted orchestras to examine their policies, practices, and assumptions, and these efforts are highly relevant to every aspect of orchestra management.

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

purchased one ticket to a concert to become a multi-concert subscriber soon thereafter; why it takes multiple years and perhaps a dozen points of contact to move a donor toward making a gift; why successful board recruitment and training doesn’t happen overnight; why an appeal to the community to “save the music” is not well received by those who don’t think the orchestra is for them; and why musicians may question the motives of a manager who only talks to them during negotiations, or when they need something.

What today’s orchestra managers understand is that trust must be earned through diligent relationship building.

Those leading and working within orchestras desperately need this trust in order to lead effectively. It is necessary when communicating honestly with a music director about the inherent challenges of artistic planning as related to financial constraints; when keeping underpaid and overworked staff members engaged; when encouraging a board of directors to govern strategically, rather than tactically; and when leading important conversations about moving the orchestra toward relevance as an asset to the entire community, not just to the privileged few.

The orchestra field in the United States is currently engaged in a reckoning over its history as a mostly white and elitist art form. As will be explored in Chapter 9, these efforts constitute an overdue (and welcome) shift in the field, and they will take time to fully take hold.

What has been made clear from numerous field leaders (the League of American Orchestras, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Sphinx Organization, and others) is that these important efforts must be sustained over the long term. In short, this work is instigating a tectonic shift in the industry, reinforcing that in addition to being good, orchestras must also do good.

Meanwhile, orchestra leaders have recently been confronted with the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from the tragic loss of life and unknown longterm health impacts on those infected with the virus, the pandemic has upended the entire arts ecosystem, including the core operations of orchestras—live concerts performed indoors for large

Ultimately, the most important job of an orchestra manager is to be an active and patient listener. crowds of people. Many orchestras have responded to this challenge by innovating and adapting, and as of this writing, the League of American Orchestras is not aware of any orchestra going out of business due to the virus.

Building and sustaining internal and external relationships has been (and will continue to be) orchestras’ most important task in addressing both of these systemic challenges. Confronting and adapting long-established cultures and traditions will mean questioning a myriad of assumptions and rebuilding internal and external relationships, as well as initiating new relationships with those who may not feel that orchestral music is “for them.” Revamping business models and content delivery in response to COVID-19 (as many orchestras have already done) requires renewed internal alignment in order to reach audience and community members in different ways.

Thus, effective and intentional relationship building is a recurring theme in this book.

Any seasoned orchestra manager will state that much of the knowledge and skills needed in this field is gained through practical, hands-on experience, and this is absolutely true. In order to support this work, each chapter of this handbook will provide practical strategies, tools, and a variety of resources to those who work in the orchestra management field, with an emphasis on relationship building throughout.

Illustrative case studies highlighting innovative practices being undertaken at orchestras across the country will be regularly featured, providing the reader an opportunity to learn from the experiences of others. Additionally, each chapter will conclude with a series of discussion questions to ponder, teasing out some of the chapter’s key concepts.

Ultimately, what works for one orchestra may be the exact opposite of what another orchestra needs. This makes perfect sense, especially if orchestras 25

A chart from the Orchestra Management Handbook illustrates an approach to patron acquisition, engagement, and advancement. Other graphs in the book illustrate internal decision-making processes, suggest ways to evaluate programs, and show organizational charts at orchestras with a variety of sizes and structures.

are reflecting the needs of their diverse communities—needs that will be very different from one region to another.

Therefore, rather than prescribing a unified “model” or “guide” to orchestra management, this handbook introduces concepts that are largely common to orchestras, alongside a variety of potential approaches to any given challenge or opportunity.

The reason this handbook is able to focus squarely on orchestra management is that other scholars have done a remarkable job creating a trove of resources devoted to arts management. Thanks to the work of these scholars (some of which is cited in this book’s notes), those who would like additional depth or context have a number of potential books, journals, and other materials to explore.

Additionally, a compilation of resources is included in Chapter 10.

In terms of scope, this book is focused on orchestras in the United States.

26

Effectively establishing, nurturing, maintaining, growing, and deepening relationships leads to what orchestra managers need most— trust.

Though many of the concepts presented herein could apply internationally (and some international examples are given), the particular characteristics of orchestras as a reflection of the financial, social, and cultural constructs that exist in the United States receive the bulk of the book’s attention. Additionally, much of the book’s content speaks to orchestras with paid musicians and staff, though again, many concepts could also be applied to volunteer or student orchestras.

Throughout the book, the term “orchestra manager” is utilized in reference to the chief administrator of the organization. The specific titles of orchestra managers have evolved over the decades, including General Manager, Executive Director, President and CEO, and many variations thereof. For the purposes of this book, the term “orchestra manager” will be used consistently to refer to the person charged with overseeing the entire administrative operation, typically reporting to the board of directors.

Managing an orchestra is a complicated endeavor that can be overwhelming, especially given the wide variety of challenges facing the field. Ultimately, the most important job of an orchestra manager is to be an active and patient listener—gathering information from all who are willing to share and making decisions that move the orchestra toward greater relevance as essential members of their community.

SUMMER 2022

Global Assist

Ukraine is only the most recent tragic conflict to create refugees by the millions. Orchestras and

others in the classical music community are taking

action to help displaced Artists as they navigate life away from home.

Courtesy Jessica Lustig

By Jeremy Reynolds

Ahmad Sarmast, founder of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, in Portugal with musicians from Zohra, the school’s orchestra of girls and young women.

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Courtesy Jessica Lustig Courtesy Jessica Lustig

Yo-Yo Ma helps tune the violin of a student at the Escola Artistica de Musica Do Conservatorio Nacional in Lisbon, Portugal in March 2022. The violinist was one of the last Afghanistan National Institute of Music students to be evacuated from Kabul to Lisbon in 2021.

On the tarmac in Portugal awaiting a plane from Doha carrying young émigré musicians from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, left to right: Jessica Lustig, ANIM founder Ahmad Sarmast, and Lesley Rosenthal. Lustig, a co-founder of the music publicity firm 21C Media, and Rosenthal, the Juilliard School’s COO, worked with Sarmast to help Afghan musicians resettle in Portugal after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last summer.

W

hen Russia invaded Ukraine in February, many Ukrainian musicians fled the country.

Some took up their instruments to play the music of their homeland. Some took up arms. Marta Krechkovsky, a violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, immigrated to Canada when she was 12 to compete in music competitions, but she still has family in Ukraine. One of her cousins, a piano teacher at the University of Kyiv, fled to the Western part of the country and is now teaching lessons on Zoom. Another cousin, a violinist with the Kyiv National Opera, signed up for territorial defense and is now serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Instead of a violin, he now carries a rifle. Instead of the sounds of pounding timpani, there are mortar blasts. Instead of woodwinds, there are

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra in front of Ukraine’s parliament building, Verkhovna Rada, in Kyiv, before the war. At press time, many orchestra musicians were granted leave from military service to perform on tour in Europe.

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Todd Rosenberg

George Lange

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Concert for Peace on April 2, 2022 featured PSO violinist Marta Krechkovsky (center), who was born in Ukraine and still has relatives there. Music Director Manfred Honeck (to Krechkovsky’s left), led the concert, which raised funds to support humanitarian relief for the people of Ukraine and featured pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, two Pittsburgh choirs, and Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artists.

Pittsburgh Symphony violinist Marta Krechkovsky says while it’s “amazing to see everyone rally around” in support of Ukraine during the war, she worries about one of her cousins, a violinist with the Kyiv National Opera now serving in Ukraine’s armed forces. “I just wonder when they’re going to be able to go back home,” Krechkovsky says. “I hope it’s soon.”

clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh, gotten the bulk of the media attention, sirens. “We’re constantly worried he’ll be whose native country has been embroiled but it is far from the only world situation sent into the East. He’s not from a miliin a civil war for more than a decade. to have created refugee and internally tary background, after all,” Krechkovsky The human rights abuses of the Uyghur displaced communities. Heartrending says. “He does whatever he’s asked. He’s Muslims in the Xinjiang province in images of Afghans’ desperate attempts to a soldier now.”

China resulted in dangerous and difficult leave in August 2021, after the TaliMusicians, orchestras, and other realities, including for Uyghur musicians; ban’s takeover of the government, were members of the classical music commusome of those who fled their homeland followed several months later by the nity are playing important roles during have become members this and other global of Lidiya Yankovskacrises, rolling up sleeves ya’s U.S.-based Refugee and doing what they Orchestra Project. The can to raise awareness Seattle Symphony this and money and to create In times of war and spring hosted a fundraiscommunity as conflicts conflict, music can ing concert at Benaroya rage and force millions to Hall entitled “The Mayleave their homes to seek function as a symbol for ors’ Concert for Ukraine safety. Many concerts solidarity and identity and Refugees Worldwide,”

by American orchestras with proceeds going to this February and March and hope.

Ukrainian refugees in Euopened with musicians rope and refugee groups standing up to perform in Seattle and elsewhere the Ukrainian National in King County. In local Anthem. Some orchestras press reports, Valeriy Goloborodko, the image of young Afghanistan National adapted existing programs by adding Honorary Consul General of Ukraine in Institute of Music musicians arriving repertoire by Ukrainian composers, and Seattle, said, “The Symphony’s musisafely in Portugal, where they have been other orchestras held fundraisers to assist cians volunteering for this concert is granted asylum. Other musicians have the victims of the war in Ukraine. As of yet another example of how people are escaped the clashes in their countries April, an estimated 6 million people have contributing so much to help the people and settled permanently in the United been forced to leave that country. of Ukraine.” In the Houston Symphony’s States, among them Syrian American The conflict in Ukraine may have

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Melissa Taylor

Conductor Christopher Rountree and the Houston Symphony at the orchestra’s June 2019 “Resilient Sounds” program featuring works created jointly by local composers and recent refugees to Houston. Taking a bow after that evening’s performance of Victor Rangel’s To Dream of Jasmines, were (left to right, in front of orchestra) filmmaker Erica Cheung, Dayana Halawo, a community leader and refugee from Syria, and Rangel. To Dream of Jasmines tells the story of Halawo’s flight from the Syrian war with her family.

Melissa Taylor

Musicians, orchestras, and others in classical music are doing what they can to raise awareness and money and to create community for people forced to leave their countries to seek safety.

Jimmy López Bellido, then the Houston Symphony’s composer in residence, led the orchestra’s “Resilient Sounds” project pairing local composers with people recently resettled in Houston, including refugees from the Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Syria, and more.

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

“Resilient Sounds” series, composers are paired with members of the city’s diverse refugee communities to create new works.

In times of war and conflict, music can function as a symbol for solidarity and identity and hope. It can be a rallying cry against invasion and injustice.

It can help humanize displaced communities and show that the ties that bind humanity are stronger than their differences. It can represent a piece of home that travels wherever displaced people find welcome and safety. And it can be a source of comfort and hope to those on the front lines. “On his day off from the Armed Services all he wanted

to do was pick up his violin and practice,” Krechkovsky says of her cousin.

Battling Silence In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s recent rise to power cast a deathly hush over the land, as the fundamentalist group has banned playing or even listening to music. The consequences for doing so can be fatal. Taliban soldiers have murdered musicians at weddings and celebrations.

Afghans have been killed for listening to music on a radio or phone, pulled from cars and beaten mercilessly. Since August, musicians have sold and burned instruments out of fear of retribution.

This is the second time the Taliban has

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Justin Mohling

“After the uprising and the crisis that followed, I switched from thinking of music as a luxury. Art making became more urgent,” says clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh, originally from Damascus, Syria.

instilled such a ban. The first was in the 1990s, causing numerous professionals and educators to flee to Pakistan, Iran, India, Germany, and elsewhere.

The Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), founded 2010 in Kabul by Dr. Ahmad Sarmast in part to bring back some of that lost talent and knowledge, shut its doors when the Taliban took over the city last summer. “This was a unique school, one of the only coed schools in the country that provided complete secondary education,” says Jessica Lustig, a board member of Friends of ANIM, a charitable group that supports the school, which provides instruction in both Western and Afghan music. “For girls over the age of 12 it was already one of the few places they could go and learn math and history and science in the country. That’s one of the reasons the school was so irritating to the Taliban.”

Lustig, a founding partner of 21C Media Group, a music publicity firm based in New York, worked tirelessly to secure transport and asylum for the school’s 273 students and faculty in Lisbon, Portugal, “the only country in the world that offered any kind of opportunity for the group asylum,” she says.

After a harrowing few months, school started once more for the institute in February in Lisbon, Portugal, ensuring the preservation of Afghan music traditions. The Afghan students have begun attending regular high school

Syrian American clarinetist Kinan Azmeh (center) performed with musicians from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in “Far from Home,” an April 2022 program featuring three of Azmeh’s compositions that reflect on the personal significance of “home.” Performing with Azmeh were OSL violinists Jesse Mills and Alexander Fortes, violist Katarzyna Bryla-Weiss, cellist Sujin Lee, and bassist John Feeney (not pictured).

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SUMMER 2022

as well as the national conservatory for gifted musicians of Lisbon and taking intensive Portuguese classes. Yo-Yo Ma visited in March to perform with a double quartet: four Portuguese students and four Afghan students. “The fervent hope is that one day the school will reopen in Kabul and bring this Afghan music back home where it belongs,” Lustig says, explaining that under the Taliban’s rule an entire musical tradition is being wiped out. “Right now the entire country is silent, with musicians being tortured and heckled. I think people would be outraged if they knew, but people don’t realize it’s still happening.”

displaced populations: Where is home?

Azmeh’s answer is personal: “Home is the place you wish well for, where you contribute without having to justify it.”

When he takes “Home Within” to a refugee community, he says he tries to contribute and make it meaningful to the groups he interacts with, even if it’s only for a day. This is particularly true when working with displaced children, he says,

describing how he helped Syrian girls to write a song using the names of boys they liked. “It was an amazing situation,” he says. “That’s where these kids should be in life, and I try to help them realize that they can have a voice. But that same night you go back to your hotel, while the kids go back to sleep in a tent sometimes.

This part kills me.”

Pieces of Home Syrian American clarinetist Kinan Azmeh has been pondering the concept of “home” in his music for more than a decade. He arrived in the U.S. a week before 9/11 and became a citizen in July 2021. In 2010, Azmeh, living in New York, watched the Syrian uprising on TV as well as the violence of the government’s response. Azmeh says that feelings of hopelessness and loss drowned out his creativity for a year before he realized that performing was itself an act of freedom. “After the uprising and the crisis that followed, I switched from thinking of music as a luxury. Art making became more urgent,” he says.

His first composition after the crisis, “A Sad Morning, Every Morning,” became the cornerstone of a multimedia project, “Home Within,” which Azmeh has since performed around the world in concert halls and refugee centers alike, raising money for humanitarian aid for Syrians and others. In March, musicians of the Silk Road Ensemble joined Azmeh, a long-standing member, for performances in multiple U.S. cities.

“As artists we can open windows and raise awareness, but the fact that you can move people with these creations—humanity needs that,” he says. “I think back to the Rwandan genocide in the early 1990s. I’m embarrassed to admit, I watch the news, but did I do anything? No. It felt way beyond anything I could do. But I would like people to not feel the same, whether it’s Syria or Ukraine.”

While it wasn’t directly targeted to refugee communities, “Home Within” touches on a question intrinsic to AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

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Jill Steinberg Karen Almond

Lidiya Yankovskaya conducts the Refugee Orchestra at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. Yankovskaya was once a refugee, and the orchestra’s members include musicians who have come to the U.S. as refugees from all over the world.

“These performances humanize the refugee community,” says conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya, who founded the Refugee Orchestra Project in 2015. “Seeing people performing together on stage, hearing composers and performers share their stories with the audience, is a powerful thing.”

Resettlement Blues Catastrophe and war can displace refugees to any part of the world, but U.S. State Department data shows that many of these individuals’ and families’ roads led to the Lone Star State.

Between 2010 and 2019, nearly 57,000 refugees went to Texas, more than any other state in the U.S. In recent years, the Houston Symphony Orchestra has worked to engage directly and personally with that population through its work with Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston, a local organization that helps resettle refugees.

During the 2018-2019 season, the orchestra launched “Resilient Sounds,” pairing six local composers from the Rice Shepherd

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School and the University of Houston Moores School of Music with six recently resettled refugees identified by Interfaith. The composers worked with artistic partners— some of the works involved poetry or dance or visual art— to tell the tale of these refugees’ journeys and experiences.

“People keep getting displaced on a staggering scale,” says HSO Executive Director and CEO John Mangum. “The long-term goal with this project is to help tell stories and process stories in the pursuit of creating mutual understanding.”

Jimmy López Bellido, the orchestra’s composer-in-residence at the time, shepherded the project, which included refugees from the Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Syria, and elsewhere. “Resilient Sounds” came to fruition in the summer of 2019, when the six works debuted to a sold-out community venue with listeners from the neighborhood as well from as the refugees’ networks and symphony patrons.

“The energy that night was just tremendous,” Mangum says, adding that the event was considered a huge success.

The original plan had been to continue developing the six works—but COVID-19 threw an all-too-familiar wrench.

“Some of the composers have moved on, but we’d like to continue the work that we started,” Mangum adds. “This project shows that we have much more in common with these six refugees than what makes us different. Music helps us reflect on these commonalities and our shared human experience.”

A Refugee Orchestra “Refugees often don’t talk about refugee status, they don’t want it to define them,” says Lidiya Yankovskaya, founder and conductor of the Refugee Orchestra Project, an ensemble of top-level musicians from around the globe.

“They want to define their own lives for who they are.”

Yankovskaya, a Russian-American conductor who specializes in new music and operatic rarities and participated

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in the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, is a refugee herself. Her family fled to the U.S. in the ’90s to escape anti-Semitism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. She founded the Refugee Orchestra Project in 2015 to raise money for Syrian aid but quickly discovered an additional important function for an orchestra of displaced musicians. “These performances humanize the refugee community,” she says. “Seeing people performing together on stage, hearing composers and performers share their stories with the audience, is a powerful thing.”

The orchestra soon began receiving invitations for additional performances in the U.S. and abroad. It’s grown significantly since it was founded, developing a network of professional musicians and performing a mix of Western classical music as well as the traditional music of some of the orchestra’s members, partnering at times with existing orchestras. “The main focus is on spreading awareness of the issues,” Yankovskaya says. “There are so many really high-level musicians coming into the country with few connections. Maybe they have studied in ways that are slightly less traditional.” The Refugee Orchestra Project has members from the Uyghur Muslim community as well as from Myanmar, Armenia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South and Central America, and more. They’re currently working with the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, partnering with the Veterans Association on a Memorial Day performance intended to help Ukrainian refugees and showcase music from the organization’s member communities. “This opens cultural understanding,” Yankovskaya explains.

“Even musicians don’t realize there are such incredible musical styles. I think U.S. orchestras can learn from this. In order to create a unified sound we think that people have to come from a unified cookie-cutter background and approach.

But that’s not the case.”

On the world stage, orchestras and opera companies large and small continue to perform the Ukrainian Anthem and music by Ukrainian composers. The Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Polish National Opera in Warsaw have partnered with musicians from AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

Ukraine to create the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, scheduled to tour Europe and the U.S. in August. Krechkovsky, the Pittsburgh Symphony violinist, says that while it’s “amazing to see everyone rally around this,” the announcement of the tour was bittersweet. Her cousin could perhaps have qualified for an exemption from the armed forces for such a tour.

Now, he’s defending his homeland, practicing when he can, and hoping for

a better tomorrow. “I just wonder when they’re going to be able to go back home,” Krechkovsky says. “I hope it’s soon.”

JEREMY REYNOLDS is the classical music critic at the Pittsburgh PostGazette, where he is also an editorial writer. He has written for Opera Magazine, EMAg (the magazine of Early Music America), and San Francisco Classical Voice.

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Songs of the Earth Climate change and the impact of humans on the natural environment continue to be a major focus for composers writing for orchestra. Much like climate change itself, the topic is taking on increased urgency, with a broad swath of new works offering far more than soundscapes. Composers and orchestras are taking multiple approaches— and even finding reasons for hope.

By Brian Wise

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Cynthia Adams

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With works including Become Ocean, Become Desert, and others, composer John Luther Adams has become the standard-bearer of conservation-minded orchestra scores. The Philadelphia Orchestra will give the world premiere of his Vespers of the Blessed Earth in May 2023.

Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

But just as young climate activists have risen to the fore, a new compositional vanguard is also emerging. Gabriella Smith, a 31-year-old composer and environmentalist from Berkeley, California, has written visceral works driven

its premiere in May 2023. After working as an environmental activist in the 1970s and ’80s, Adams has become the standard-bearer of conservation-minded works, most prominently with his Become Ocean, which was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony and won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2014 and the 2015

David Calvert

Igor Studios

ven after the Industrial Revolution began, composers largely stuck to a pristine version of nature: all those pastoral symphonies and overtures about calm seas and fresh alpine vistas. But as humans have made their mark—razing rainforests, depleting fish stocks, and burning fossil fuels with abandon—a more sober picture has emerged. Orchestral composers are increasingly turning to scientific literature, photographic evidence, and first-person narratives from witnesses to convey the gravity of climate change and ecological devastation.

Jimmy López Bellido’s Altered Landscape, which the Reno Philharmonic premiered this May, was inspired by photographs of polluted, disfigured, and scarred landscapes, drawn from a collection at the Nevada Museum of Art. The End of Rain, composed by Scott Ordway for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music this July, features a vocal text based on first-hand accounts of California’s wildfires and drought, crowdsourced from some 225 of its residents.

And John Luther Adams’s Vespers of the Blessed Earth will include a setting of the call of the Kaua‘i ‘o‘o, a now-extinct bird from Hawai‘i, as well as the recitation of 193 critically threatened and endangered species of plants and animals.

The Philadelphia Orchestra will give

Composer Jimmy López Bellido takes a bow with the Reno Philharmonic and Music Director Laura Jackson at the world premiere of his Altered Landscape, May 2022.

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“I wanted to use this piece as an inspiration and tell [scientists] to keep working, keep doing what you’re doing,” says composer Jimmy López Bellido of his Altered Landscape, which was commissioned by the Reno Philharmonic and sparked by photographs of polluted landscapes.

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Amanda Greene

Scott Ordway RR Jones

The End of Rain, composed by Scott Ordway for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music this July, is accompanied by Ordway’s photographs documenting human impact on natural environments.

Composer Gabriella Smith, conductor Marin Alsop, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra take a bow at the world premiere of Smith’s Tumblebird Contrails at the 2014 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Multiple orchestras will perform the work in the coming season.

“I am, of course, motivated by a concern for our changing climate but my subject is people rather than a scientific phenomenon,” says composer Scott Ordway about his The End of Rain, which was commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival and premieres this July. The work features a vocal text based on first-hand accounts from residents about California’s wildfires and droughts.

Composer and environmentalist Gabriella Smith has written orchestra scores driven by her experiences backpacking, birding, and recording underwater soundscapes on the West Coast.

Ethan Leves

Composers are turning to scientific literature, photographic evidence, and eyewitness accounts to convey the gravity of climate change and ecological devastation.

Lucas Richman, music director of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in Maine, with the score for The Warming Sea, his orchestral work that reflects on climate change—and climate change deniers. The Bangor Symphony partnered with the Maine Science Festival to commission the work and gave the world premiere this March, following a lengthy delay caused by the pandemic.

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Composer Iman Habibi describes his 2020 Jeder Baum spricht (“every tree speaks”) as “an unsettling rhapsodic reflection on the climate catastrophe.” Since its premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the piece has been played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and, next season, the orchestras of Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Toronto.

Several new works are accompanied by projections of photographs that capture the devastation and strange beauty of environmental degradation.

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Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music

Maria Tauger David Grimmett

Composer Gabriela Lena Frank has written several pieces exploring the natural world and the environmental crisis—including the effects of droughts and wildfires near her home in rural Boonville, California.

Gabriela Lena Frank at far right with participants in her Creative Academy of Music in Boonville, California. Among the aims of the program for emerging composers is training to address the environmental crisis and learning how to make music ethically.

by her experiences backpacking, birding, and recording underwater soundscapes on the West Coast. Some of her earlier climate-themed pieces are being newly discovered, including Tidalwave Kitchen (2012) and Tumblebird Contrails (2014), which the San Francisco Symphony and Seattle Symphony, respectively, will present next season. Her Lost Coast, which the Los Angeles Philharmonic will premiere in a revised version in May 2023, was inspired by a hiking trip along the Lost Coast Trail, an isolated stretch of the California coastline.

Smith hopes that her music can activate listeners who may acknowledge the climate crisis but don’t grasp its urgency.

“Of course what we really need is systemic change on a global, government level,” she says, “but as individuals we don’t have a lot of power on that level. But we do have the power to change the field, institutions, and communities we are all involved in. And I think people are often more receptive to that when it comes as part of a musical experience.”

Wildfires Spark New Works Smith’s Breathing Forests, which the LA Phil premiered in February, is one of several new pieces concerning California’s parched woodlands, including Robin Holcomb’s Paradise, about the town of the same name that was consumed by wildfire in 2018; Steven Mackey’s forthcoming Delirium Musicum, which evokes the California Redwoods, and Ordway’s

Orchestra managers may ask: does playing pieces about climate concerns merely preach to the choir—or risk alienating it?

aforementioned The End of Rain, written for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra in Santa Cruz, California and vocal group Roomful of Teeth.

Ordway drew on focus groups, classroom visits, and written submissions from the Cabrillo Festival’s dedicated website (theendofrain.com) to gather some 80,000 words of testimony about the California wildfires. “For reference, that’s a good-sized novel’s worth of words,” he says. “I wanted to find the shared concerns of a large community that perhaps transcended any one individual experience.” Some stories were tragic or harrowing, such as that of a girl seeing her father perish in the flames.

Ordway, who teaches composition at Rutgers University in New Jersey, says the performance will also feature projections of his own photographs of the charred landscapes around his native Santa Cruz. “It was powerful to me to meet with people whose experiences were very different from my own,” he says of his travels through the politically

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“These are not political statements,” says Philadelphia Orchestra President and CEO Matías Tarnopolsky. “Cultural organizations exist to create moments of transcendence and transformation and open doors into new ways of thinking.”

J. Henry Fair

On April 23, Rei Hotoda led the Houston-based ROCO ensemble in the world premiere of Derek Bermel’s Plumes, based on J. Henry Fair’s photography collection “Industrial Scars.” Fair’s photos were shown to accompany the music.

J. Henry Fair’s photography collection “Industrial Scars,” which captures the destruction and the strange beauty of industrial and human impact on the planet, inspired Derek Bermel’s Plumes, which was given its world premiere this April by Houston’s ROCO ensemble, conducted by Rei Hotoda.

conservative region of central California.

“I wasn’t trying to provoke conversation about climate change. I am, of course, motivated by a concern for our changing climate but my subject is people rather than a scientific phenomenon.”

Composer Gabriela Lena Frank, based in rural Boonville, California, turned the horror of seeing her state burn into multiple environmental pieces, including Pachamama Meets an Ode. Premiered in February by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the 11-minute work for orchestra and chorus weaves together themes of colonialism and exploited ecosystems that date to Beethoven’s time (the work’s title reflects the fact that it is intended as a companion to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony).

Frank has also put climate on the

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agenda at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, her nonprofit teaching institute, through a two-year program dubbed Composing Earth.

Among the composers in the program is Iman Habibi, an Iranian-Canadian composer whose 2020 breakthrough, Jeder Baum spricht (“every tree speaks”), is, according to the composer’s note, “an unsettling rhapsodic reflection on the climate catastrophe.” The five-minute score was written as a sort of dialogue with Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies and is titled after a phrase in Beethoven’s writings. Since its premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the piece has been played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and, coming next season, the orchestras of Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Toronto.

Habibi says he hopes the piece can continue to gain traction in areas away from the coasts and large cities. “It’s easy to feel like what we do is so small and doesn’t matter, but I think it has a ripple effect,” he says. “One person sees it and then they pass it on to the next person.

That’s my hope at least.”

That sharing of ideas and actions is built into the Reno Philharmonic’s commission of López Bellido’s Altered Landscape. Though rooted in local specifics—the work was commissioned by the Reno Philharmonic and inspired by the Nevada Museum of Art’s exhibit of photographs capturing humanity’s impact on nature—Altered Landscape is also part of a broader project. The Reno Philharmonic is inviting other orchestras to join a consortium of ensembles that will perform the score over the next two seasons. There’s no fee to participate— instead, the Reno Philharmonic asks that consortium orchestras make a “pay-itforward” contribution to the Nature Conservancy.

Altered Landscape charts multiple themes—the Anthropocene epoch, the COVID-19 pandemic, and earth’s electromagnetic resonances—before a luminous finale that salutes human ingenuity. “There are actually a huge number of people in science right now working on solutions,” López Bellido says. “I want to believe that we will make it through and find a solution to all of this. I wanted to use this piece as an inspiration and tell [scientists] to keep working, keep doing what you’re doing.”

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There’s no fee for orchestras that perform Jimmy López Bellido’s Altered Landscape as part of the Reno Philharmonic’s consortium. Instead, the Reno Phil asks participating orchestras to contribute to the Nature Conservancy.

Confronting Denial A few composers have tackled climate change denial itself. In Lucas Richman’s The Warming Sea, a chorus represents the siren song of climate-change deniers “whose alluring messages of complacency ensure an ultimate doom to those who listen.” Premiered in March, the piece was a commission from the Maine Science Festival and the Bangor Symphony

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Orchestra, where Richman is music director. Similarly, Vijay Iyer’s Crisis Modes, introduced by the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s New Music Group in 2018, is a call to the barricades, to “push through a haze of denial,” according to the composer’s program note.

Other composers look for poetry in scientific and activist literature.

Drew Hemenger’s Ozymandias: To Sell a Planet, which the Boulder Philharmonic will premiere in October, incorporates speeches by climate activist Greta Thunberg as well as U.N. climate reports and Native American texts. Julia Wolfe’s UnEarth, a multimedia oratorio that will examine “forced migrations, adaptations, species loss, land loss and changing seas,” is slated for a June 2023 premiere by the New York Philharmonic.

Aaron Jay Kernis’s Earth for tenor and chamber orchestra (2021) features texts by poet and agricultural researcher Kai Hoffman-Krull, while Mark Adamo’s 2019 Last Year is a meditation on extreme weather with a nod to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Both pieces have been performed by the Houston-based ROCO

(formerly River Oaks Chamber Orchestra), which devoted its 2021-22 season to environmental themes.

Orchestra managers may ask whether such pieces merely preach to the choir—or risk alienating it—but Philadelphia Orchestra President and CEO Matías Tarnopolsky believes the topic will remain vital. “These are not political statements,” he says. “Cultural organizations exist in our society to create these moments of transcendence and transformation and open doors into new ways of thinking about the world.

Artists don’t create art just to be passive on the side. This is about the responsibilities of cultural organizations to engage audiences.”

And for orchestras who are contemplating climate-themed programming, Tarnopolsky offers this straightforward advice: “Trust the artists and be fearless.”

BRIAN WISE writes about music for BBC Music magazine, Strings, and MusicalAmerica.com. He is the producer of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s national radio series.

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Community, Climate, Composition, Collaboration The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s climate-change-themed Floods of Fire is innovative, but not in the way you might think. The composition is the product of a large-scale collaborative project involving South Australian arts organizations, community groups, and professional and amateur musicians. People from multiple backgrounds and groups came together to create the work—and the process may be more important than the result.

Matt Turner

By Hugh Robertson

Participants in Floods of Fire workshops at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, from left: Noriko Tadano, Julian Ferraretto, Elizabeth McCall, Farhan Shah, Zhao Liang, and Lorcan Hopper.

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Claudio Raschia

Composer Iran Sanadzadeh with guitarist Alain Valodze and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra musicians in a rehearsal for Floods of Fire.

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to get there. Throughout 2020, the ASO to follow. Hold a fundraising concert, n Australia, the months between invited a wide range of South Australian hand out some comp tickets to September 2019 and March 2020 are arts organizations, community groups, firefighters, perhaps commission a known as Black Summer. Even in a and professional and amateur musicians short work from a local composer, and country where bushfires have been a fact to a series of workshops. The aim was to then move on to the business of one’s of life for millennia, the scale was unhave the entire state of South Australia subscription season. precedented: as much as 131,000 square represented: First Nations peoples, miles—an area larger than New members of the state’s diverse Mexico—was burned, “the largest migrant communities, artists with in a single recorded fire season,” The music for Floods of Fire disabilities, schoolchildren, and according to the national weather service. Some 33 people died, and was written as a large-scale many more. But instead of gathering them specifically to write music, the conservative estimates projected that collaborative exercise, workshop participants told stories over one billion mammals, birds, and reptiles died, including national with everyone contributing of fires and floods—not just stories of surviving disasters, but tales icons like koalas, kangaroos, and to the composition. from various cultures explaining wombats in the millions. the significance of these natural Then, in a cruel twist of fate, phenomena. large parts of South Australia were Also at these workshops also hit with severe thunderstorms were composers and musicians from Instead, the Adelaide Symphony in late January 2020, with power loss to a wide range of backgrounds and Orchestra is rethinking the idea of what the Royal Adelaide Hospital and flash disciplines—composers with training community engagement means for an flooding after 2.6 inches of rain fell in Western classical music, certainly, arts organization with a new program in three quarters of an hour. For many but also many trained in non-Western titled Floods of Fire. communities still reeling from the fires, and contemporary music traditions.

It’s hard to explain exactly what the hurt and loss were compounded.

Following these workshops, the stories Floods of Fire is, in part because the end Faced with such devastation, there is were fashioned into music. But instead result is less important than the journey a familiar template for arts organizations

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of individual composers taking these stories away and writing a piece of music, the music was written as a large-scale collaborative exercise, with everyone involved in the composition.

“It’s a real art,” says Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Learning and Community Projects Manager Elizabeth McCall.

“It is something that is developing across the world right now, collaborative composition, but in an orchestral sense is really new. Music is this incredible way of telling a story. It communicates someone’s whole experience, often beyond words—so if we can get into people’s stories and help create that music, we are truly connecting with them.”

In the U.S., several orchestras have commissioned composers to create new works that gather input directly from local communities, to “crowdsource” the scores, including several projects previously covered in Symphony magazine. For the New World Symphony’s Miami in Movement project in Miami Beach, Florida, composer Ted Hearne and filmmaker Jonathan Kane asked residents to submit audio and video clips about the past and present of the city, which they wove into a musical composition and accompanying

video and photos. At other orchestras, members of local Black and Native American communities have contributed to new works evoking, for example, their own cultural history or the natural

to be evident in that work so that the orchestral work is a fully functioning piece.”

It’s a concept more familiar to the world of theater, where models like verbatim and participatory theater have long provided alternatives to relying solely on individual playwrights.

And indeed, the idea for Floods of Fire came from Airan Berg, a European participatory theater director, who approached ASO Managing Director Vincent Ciccarello with a new idea about how an orchestra could more deeply engage with its community.

“Floods of Fire is an example of how ASO reflects the issues and concerns affecting our community today, by listening, connecting, and learning,” Ciccarello said when the project was launched in October 2021.

“The project reflects everything a modern-day orchestra should be in 2021, accessible for all in the whole community, enabling the community to connect with and learn from other cultures in the development of new music for the orchestra.”

“We want to be an orchestra that is truly South Australian, and truly connected to the people here,” says McCall. “We want our music to tell those stories, and to really reflect them.

landscape. These projects create closer bonds between orchestras and their hometown’s residents, and blur the line between passive consumer and active creator of new music.

For Floods of Fire, McCall explains, “Composers are working with a myriad of groups, including professional musicians, non-professional musicians, and members of the public who haven’t worked in music before. And most of the compositions come from the group as well, so it’s a real challenge for the composers to hear the musical ideas and develop them without imposing their own voice, but still allow their musicianship and skill as a composer

Claudio Raschella

Claudio Raschella

The aim of the project is to involve the entire state of South Australia: First Nations peoples, members of diverse migrant communities, artists with disabilities, children, and many more.

Musician Farhan Shah in a rehearsal for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Floods of Fire project.

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Participants in Floods of Fire included community choirs, seen here in a rehearsal with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

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Collaborative composers and musicians Adam Page, Nancy Bates, and Noriko Tadano at a workshop for Floods of Fire.

“We want to be an orchestra that is truly South Australian, and truly connected to the people here,” says Elizabeth McCall, Learning and Community Projects Manager at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. “This project is about representing our community, making music with them, immersing ourselves with them.”

Claudio Raschella

Claudio Raschella Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

Floods of Fire includes narratives and commentary from community members.

“Floods of Fire is an example of how ASO reflects the issues and concerns affecting our community today, by listening, connecting, and learning,” says Adelaide Symphony Managing Director Vincent Ciccarello.

ready to perform. “It is our hope that we We are a European tradition, but the the timelines or funding arrangements will present it in some outdoor concerts Australian community is incredibly of major arts organizations would later this year,” she says, “but each diverse, and we want that reflected in recognize. “You just need time with element of the project will progress at the the music we perform. And the only people” when creating projects like this, rate it needs to. That is also something way you can really do that is to find says McCall. “That is one of the great that we have had to sit with, and we can’t new avenues, because even when we are challenges for the orchestra: we have push our timeline to make looking at commissioning things happen. It requires you can’t be an orchestral What makes Floods of Fire remarkable quite a lot of patience, but composer without having had a specific journey in is that no one seems all that concerned it’s worth it.”

Arts SA, the South your musical development. about outcomes, at least not in the way Australian government’s And this was a way of us arts and culture grantstarting to explore other that anyone familiar with orchestras making body, has ways of connecting with would recognize. embraced the spirit of the people. This project really project, offering flexibility is about representing our and demonstrating an community, and making understanding of what the ASO is music with them, and immersing this revolving program of concerts, like trying to do. Instead of requiring that ourselves with them.” every orchestra does, and creating space funds granted in a financial year be It is certainly an atypical model. in our schedule for that, when you don’t spent that same year, as most funding What makes this project more necessarily have a concert on, and it is bodies in Australia do, Arts SA has remarkable is that no one—from purely the luxury of connecting through allowed the orchestra to roll monies over orchestra management to the musicians music.” to accommodate compositions that are to the government funding bodies that Even now, more than a year after the taking longer to develop. support the project—seems all that workshops were held, McCall isn’t totally The outcomes of Floods of Fire are concerned about the outcomes, at least sure how many pieces of music will come also being assessed under a very different not in the way that anyone familiar with out of the process, or when they will be AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

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framework. The past 30-plus years of arts funding in Australia has been defined by two things: by ever-decreasing amounts of support, and by requirements that arts companies receiving public funds account for every dollar and demonstrate adequate return on investment.

However, Floods of Fire is being examined by Lab Adelaide, a research project based at Flinders University in South Australia, which states that it is “looking at ways of understanding the value of arts and culture beyond the economic data, ticket sales and spill-over effects.” Lab Adelaide’s website states: “Economic impact studies do not tell the full story of the value of an organisation or event. Funding agencies require new ways of understanding the value of arts and culture organisations, events and objects, and policy makers require a new framework for thinking about the value of arts and culture.”

“I have seen a draft of their report, and it is beautiful,” says McCall, in what must surely be the first-ever instance of someone describing a funding report as “beautiful.” She adds, “It really captures

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra musicians rehearse during a Floods of Fire workshop.

lots of experiences, and looks at certain themes across the impact of the project.”

Some of the works from the project have already received a public performance, at the ASO’s outdoor, family-oriented Festival of Orchestra in late November 2021: Singaporean-

Chinese composer Zhao Liang’s treatment of the story of the phoenix, written in collaboration with composer Belinda Gehlert; Bulu Yabru Banam, by Grayson Rotumah and Luke Harrald, featuring water percussion and requiring the orchestra musicians to chant; and a work by collaborative composer Julian Ferraretto, co-written with students from Carlton School Port Augusta, played as the opener for a 200-person performance of Orff ’s Carmina Burana.

“The audience came with generosity of spirit, and understood that this was a new project and a new way of working,” says McCall. “We had some of the artists and community members who had been involved in the compositions come to the performance, including a group of children who had come down all the way from Port Augusta [322km/200 miles] that day. It was an incredible experience for them. And these children who had never seen an orchestra before, let alone had their work performed by an orchestra, got applauded as composers.

There were some beautiful moments of the audience really connecting with the project.”

There are more public performances on the way for later in 2022, but McCall couldn’t publicly announce those at press time, and given the fluid nature of this project, she’s not totally sure when anything will be completed. Regardless of whether the works from Floods of Fire enter the standard repertoire, or this type SUMMER 2022

Claudio Raschella

Percussionists from Tutti Arts participated in creating the score for Floods of Fire at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

of collaborative composition becomes an example for other organizations around the world to follow, McCall has loved the journey that they have all been on together thus far.

“I’m not sure we would always work that way,” she says. “But for this project

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it is really fun, and quite freeing. And for the orchestra, we were also outside of our comfort zones, which is true for the musicians and the community members working within the project, too. And that felt fair—we all needed to be uncomfortable in order to move

through this process together. It has been an incredible experience. And we have learned so much from it.”

HUGH ROBERTSON is the deputy editor of Limelight, Australia’s leading arts and culture publication.

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Conductors of Western classical orchestras have almost all been White men. Few American orchestras hired Black conductors and fewer still put a Black music director on the podium, and many Black musical artists had to head to Europe to build careers. That’s changing—the past several years have seen an increase in the number of Black conductors and music directors at U.S. orchestras. But two decades into the 21st century, are things moving far enough, fast enough?

By Rosalyn Story

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eventy years ago, when a young Black American conductor was canvassing Europe for conducting opportunities, a Swedish concert manager offered him an extraordinary proposition. If the conductor would consider wearing whitening makeup and white gloves, he told a New York Times reporter on July 19, 1970, “an engagement would be considered.”

It was a preposterous notion, even for 1952. Despite that request—which he ignored—Dean Dixon would go on to become music director of Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Germany’s Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Australia’s Sydney Symphony, and he had a full calendar of international guest-conducting dates, leading as many as 125 concerts a year. In postwar Europe, he would achieve something that was nearly impossible for a Black conductor in the United States: to be regarded as a musician first and foremost, without regard to race. Europe was certainly no post-racial paradise, but during that period in the U.S. there was little hope for an African American with orchestral leadership in mind. The history of Black conductors crafting a career in America mirrors the journey of Black classical singers; before the war, Germany and Austria embraced the artistry of contralto Marian Anderson, tenor Roland Hayes, and others, and their European bona fides boosted their American careers. And if Europe was a more comfortable haven for singers and conductors, that was also true for instrumentalists.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, as Black Americans marched and protested to sit at lunch counters and integrate southern schools and transit systems, Dixon became one of the most successful American conductors in Europe, where he had moved because there were better professional opportunities. Dixon had tried in the U.S., and even formed his own orchestra while a student at Juilliard in the 1930s, but soon gave up on an American career. “I felt like I was on a sinking ship,” Dixon said of his decision to leave the U.S. and move to Europe. “And if I stayed here, I’d drown.”

Others felt the same way. Everett Lee, born in Wheeling, West Virginia just a year after Dixon, studied with Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood, and was hand-picked by Leonard Bernstein to 48

conduct On the Town on Broadway in the 1940s. In 1947, he founded an orchestra in New York, the Cosmopolitan Symphony Society, made up of musicians of multiple races and ethnicities. Interracial orchestras were exceedingly rare at that time anywhere in the U.S. For Lee, there were some guest-conducting appearances in the States, including a New York City Opera production of La traviata, but racial bias was strong and opportunities were few. Oscar Hammerstein II, familiar with Lee’s reputation as a violinist and conductor, considered him to lead a touring orchestra for his shows, but rejected the idea: Southern theaters, Hammerstein argued, would not book them. Lee moved to Germany in 1954. (Lee died in Sweden in January 2022 at age 105).

Another conductor, George Byrd, born in North Carolina in 1926, trained at Juilliard and led more than 80 European and U.S. orchestras during his career; he studied with Herbert von Karajan and was mostly based in Germany. (Byrd died in Munich in 2010.)

Like Dixon, Lee, and Byrd, Rudolph Dunbar also had a fine musical pedigree. The Juilliard graduate and native of British Guyana was a dashing figure on the podium, and broke color barriers when he conducted the London Philharmonic in 1942. Dunbar, a clarinetist, trained at the Sorbonne and had a wide-ranging career that included work as a jazz musician, World War II correspondent, and music critic. Dunbar returned to America and conducted at the Hollywood Bowl in the late 1940s. The war was over and Americans were coming home. As Brian Lauritzen reported at KDFC radio in 2018, when Dunbar was asked if he would now settle in the U.S., he replied, “I think I will make my home in Paris where, if you are good they will applaud you whether you are pink, white, or black.”

Incremental Change It has been many decades since the era of Dixon, Byrd, Lee, and Dunbar, and for most of the ensuing years Black conductors were rarely hired as music directors at U.S. orchestras.

There have been notable exceptions. In 1968, the New Jersey SUMMER 2022

Carl Van Vechten

Left to right: Conductors Dean Dixon (1915-76), Rudolph Dunbar (1907-99), Everett Lee (1916-2022), and George Byrd (1926-2010) all built their careers primarily in Europe, after being denied opportunities to lead orchestras in the United States. Dixon is shown on the cover of Rufus Jones’s 2018 biography conducting Switzerland’s Tonhalle Orchester Zurich.

Symphony Orchestra tapped Henry Lewis as music director. James DePreist was a long-time music director of the Oregon Symphony, serving from 1980 to 2003. At the Oakland Symphony in California, Michael Morgan had a lasting impact on the community during his 30 years as music director, and he also served as music director of the Gateways Festival Orchestra, which connects and supports professional classical musicians of African descent. Morgan was also music director of the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera and of California’s Bear Valley Music Festival. (Morgan died in August 2021 at age 63.) Thomas Wilkins has been a longstanding podium presence in the States: from 2005 to 2021, he served as music director of the Omaha Symphony, and he continues to hold positions as principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s artistic advisor, education and community engagement. William Henry Curry has served as music director of the Durham Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina since 2009. Leslie Dunner, currently conductor of the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra in Michigan, has held many music director posts, including the Nova Scotia Symphony, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra, Joffrey Ballet Company, and the South Shore Opera Company of Chicago. While there are these and other mid-career Black music directors in the U.S., their rarity indicates that they are the outstanding exceptions that prove the AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

rule. And the near-total absence of Black women being hired as music directors raises further concerns.

More recently, there has been an uptick in the number of Black music directors. From 2013 to 2021, Andrew Grams served as music director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra in Illinois.

Joseph Young became music director of California’s Berkeley Symphony in 2019; the same year, Anthony Parnther was hired as music director of California’s San Bernardino Symphony. Meanwhile, the number of assistant, associate, youth, and pops conductors has increased exponentially, and the many Black artists making a living on the podium today are too numerous to mention all of them here. Their ranks include Kevin John Edusei, recently appointed as principal guest conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony; Kenneth Bean, assistant conductor of New Jersey’s Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Symphony in C; Byron Stripling, principal pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Jonathan Rush, assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, principal youth conductor Canada’s National Arts Centre

Why are there more Black conductors now in America?

What has changed?

Orchestra; Kalena Bovell, assistant conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra; Kellen Gray, assistant conductor of the U.K.’s Royal Scottish National Orchestra and associate conductor of the Charleston Symphony; Damon Gupton, principal guest conductor of the Cincinnati Pops; and Antoine Clark, assistant conductor of West Virginia’s Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. (Roderick Cox and Joseph Young, who were interviewed for this article, are alumni of the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview.)

And when it comes to the guest-conducting circuit, there are yet more Black conductors making their way onto orchestral podiums: American conductor Kazem Abdullah, based in Germany, with an active career on both sides of the Atlantic; Canada’s Kwame Ryan, who was general music director of Germany’s Freiburg Opera (1999-2003) and music and artistic director of the National Orchestra of Bordeaux Aquitaine (2007-13) and has guest-conducting dates in the U.S. and Europe; and Jonathon Heyward, chief conductor of Germany’s Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.

In addition, some conductors have blazed their own paths: Jeri Lynne Johnson founded the Philadelphia-based Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra in 2008, and Jason Ikeem Rodgers founded his own orchestra, the Atlanta-based Orchestra Noir, in 2016.

Why are there more Black conductors now in America? What has changed? It could be argued that leaps 49

Ken Carl

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Four 20th-century American conductors who served as music directors of U.S. orchestras were among the exceptions that prove the rule. Left to right: Oregon Symphony Music Director James DePreist, Gateways Music Festival Orchestra Music Director Michael Morgan, New Jersey Symphony Music Director Henry Lewis, and Chicago Sinfonietta Founder and Music Director Paul Freeman.

Several Black conductors say they are working to create structural change so that the next generation can succeed and benefit from their own experiences. of progress, where race is concerned, are cyclical. If that is true, it explains the success of Dixon when he returned to the United States in 1970. It was the height of the Civil Rights movement. After a 20-year absence during which he was largely forgotten in his homeland despite rave reviews abroad, Dixon returned to the U.S. to conduct not only the New York Philharmonic, but also orchestras in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. When an Australian reporter asked about the belated invitation from the Philharmonic, Dixon replied, “It was not because I was suddenly a better conductor, but because black was suddenly beautiful.”

After the marches and sit-ins of the ’50s and the racial unrest and consciousness-raising of the ’60s, Black artists were having a defining moment in the ’70s, and the argument could be made that the resurgent Black Lives Matter

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movement, after assaults on unarmed Blacks and galvanized by the murder of George Floyd by police, produced a similar moment. At the same time, pandemic lockdowns forced many orchestras to take a critical look at themselves and take steps to address the lack of Black musicians, onstage and on the podium.

Several people interviewed for this article said they are working to mentor younger Black conductors, to create structural change so that the next generation of Black conductors can succeed and benefit from their own experiences.

Atlantic Divide I spoke with Blake-Anthony Johnson, who in 2020 became president and CEO of the Chicago Sinfonietta, an orchestra founded by Black conductor Paul Freeman in 1987 with a stated vision of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Johnson, a cellist and Atlanta native, notes that when he was on the orchestral audition circuit, he found more full-time work in Europe, playing with ensembles such as Chineke!, the London-based orchestra composed of musicians of varied racial backgrounds, and Sinfonia Polonia in Poland before returning to the U.S. With the Chicago Sinfonietta appointment, he became one of the very few Black CEOs at any American orchestra. He says that as a Black American classical musician in Europe, he found a greater sense of acceptance as well as a thriving, welcoming community of Black “ex-pat” instrumentalists, filling out the ranks of orchestras in countries throughout the

Continent. Johnson notes that opportunities may be greater with European orchestras because in Europe, Blacks from the U.S. are considered American first, while racial identity is secondary.

“In the States, you are Black first,” he says, whereas in Europe “you get to navigate the world and your artistry without the baggage that you have in the States. It’s the release of that baggage that allows you to focus on your artistry.”

He took a position in administration, he says, because many mentors he admires, including Michael Tilson Thomas and Yo-Yo Ma, encouraged him to find his own path and not limit himself to the concert stage. In his new role, Johnson is addressing issues of inclusion and diversity head-on; he moderated a session at the League of American Orchestras’ 2021 National Conference titled “Showing Up for Racial Equity.”

After George Floyd’s murder, suddenly arts organizations became aware of a glaring lack of inclusion and diversity within their ranks. Statements supporting the movement sprang up on orchestra websites. “There were more Black people that got university and conservatory positions. I’m sure some of it was because of George Floyd,” Johnson says. But he argues that the reason more Black Americans were hired is irrelevant.

“If people are thinking I was a diversity hire, so what? It doesn’t matter what it is. At the end of the day you still have to produce.”

The spring of 2020 also saw the beginning of a pandemic lockdown, allow-

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American conductor Roderick Cox, currently based in Germany, conducts on both sides of the Atlantic.

ing more time not only for news-watching, but also reflection, as concerts, tours, and performances were cancelled worldwide. During the shutdown and Black Lives Matter demonstrations, Germany-based American conductor Roderick Cox was at home in Berlin. “I was in Berlin, going to a huge march, and it surprised me that there were so many German people, and to see such support,” says Cox. He says that looking from the outside into the U.S. was sobering: “It was distressing, the hate groups, the leaders that were not setting the right tone for calming and bringing people together, too many forces that work on pulling people apart on the left and the right.”

Cox, a former Minnesota Orchestra associate conductor and 2018 recipient of the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, is the subject of an upcoming PBS/FilmNorth biographical documentary titled Conducting Life. A native of Macon, Georgia, Cox has an active guest-conducting career in the U.S. and Europe, and he has been active in efforts to ensure that others are able to follow in his path. In 2019 he founded the Roderick Cox Music Initiative, a scholarship program to support teenage musicians of color for things like summer music camps, instrument purchase and repair, advanced training, private lessons, and mentorship.

When the pandemic shutdown found him with an empty schedule, he hosted an online video discussion with three other Black conductors: Jonathon

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

Kevin John Edusei, the incoming principal guest conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony.

Jeff Roffman

Konstantin Golovchinsky

Marco Borggreve

Susie Knoll

Susie Knoll

“We are starting to see gradual and meaningful expressions of interest and championing by institutions, some more than others,” says Andrew Grams. “The shift that has happened has forced the hand of organizations.”

Anthony Parnther is music director of the San Bernardino Symphony. In April, he conducted concerts by the Gateways Festival Orchestra in Rochester, New York and at Carnegie Hall.

Heyward, Thomas Wilkins, and Michael Morgan. For four Black men representing two different generations—Heyward and Cox were in their 30s while Morgan and Wilkins were over 60—there was a lot to talk about. “I wanted to get their viewpoints,” Cox says. The discussion was candid and wide-ranging. All four agreed, Cox recalls, that orchestras are eager to hire Black conductors during February—Black History Month—but afterwards, not so much. In that discussion, while Wilkins maintained that every job was an opportunity for learning and growth, Cox says, “For many African American conductors I’ve spoken to, they’ve talked about the community concerts, the education concerts and the pops concerts and the classical roots concerts and the MLK concerts, and it stops short of going further than that. This can sometimes pigeonhole conductors into doing repertory that orchestras deem them ‘qualified’ to conduct.”

Michael Morgan said, “Almost every orchestra has something about Black Lives Matter on their website, but if you look at their season, there are almost no Black composers. Don’t tell me about Black Lives Matter, and then none of it’s reflected in your season.”

Hiring more Black conductors should result in more diverse programming, challenging audiences to reconsider old traditions, perhaps by pairing Black composers’ works with familiar pieces, for example canonical works by German composers. As with the rediscovery of the lost music of Black compos-

Joseph Young, music director of California’s Berkeley Symphony.

er Florence Price, conductors and music directors are reimagining programming choices. In 2021, Andrew Grams, after completing his time as music director of the Elgin Symphony, conducted a concert with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra modeled on the traditional overture/concerto/symphony format, but the overture was by Black composer William Grant Still, and the concerto was by Florence Price. The program ended with Beethoven’s Third Symphony.

“It was really great to bear witness to how these two unknown pieces stood up to the masterpiece,” Grams says.

“The music of the first half was based on the teaching of people like Beethoven but composed with a uniquely African American vernacular and meaning, definitely a specific voice, but using the language of serious Western composition.” Other orchestras and ensembles, inspired or challenged by the Black Lives Matter protests, have performed similar programs.

A Sense of Self If the 2020 protests and the forced isolation of the pandemic lockdown did nothing else, they allowed Black conductors to reassess their purpose, their identity, and their place in the world of classical music. Grams is of mixed-race heritage (his mother is Black and his father is White) but identifies as Black. A native of Maryland, he studied violin at Juilliard and conducting under Otto-Werner Mueller at the Curtis Institute.

A self-described “light-skinned,

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Blake-Anthony Johnson, president and CEO of the Chicago Sinfonietta, says, “In the States, you are Black first,” whereas in Europe “you get to navigate the world and your artistry without the baggage that you have in the States. It’s the release of that baggage that allows you to focus on your artistry.”

Roderick Cox conducts the Nashville Symphony at the League of American Orchestras’ 2016 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview.

Philadelphia, Baltimore, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and Philadelphia, as well as many orchestras in Europe. But he adds, “I wanted to free up time to work with young people.” He has worked with students at Indiana University, the Curtis Institute, and young musicians at the New World Symphony in Florida, among others. He also has used the time to contemplate the shifting grounds in the industry, as it relates to people of color. Looking back over the last two decades, he sees positive signs. “We are starting to see gradual and meaningful expressions of interest and championing by institutions, some more than others.

The shift that has happened has forced the hand of organizations. But the greatest thing that we didn’t have before is an extremely wide and deep talent pool of

artists.”

There have always been more talented candidates than available positions, and that is truer now than ever. Some of today’s emerging podium stars come from a wide range of backgrounds and bring an unusual variety of experiences. San Bernardino Symphony Music Director Anthony Parnther, the son of a Jamaican father and Samoan mother, was an opera singer as well as a professional bassoonist. Parnther describes his parents as hard-working, “no-nonsense immigrants. It was all about work: achieve, achieve, achieve.”

Parnther studied at Yale and Northwestern before doing a two-year stint performing with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and has also conducted California ensembles such as the Inland

RL Wesley

half-Black man,” Grams admits his own skin color has shielded him from negative racial experiences. Coming from a large family of darker-skinned siblings, and often mistaken for White, Grams says the BLM movement allowed him a view through a different lens. “Black Lives Matter opened my eyes to circumstances in Black people’s lives I wasn’t aware of,” he says. “I don’t think the public had any idea of police handling of African American men. Something like that would never happen to me.”

After stepping down from the Elgin Symphony in 2021, Grams sees this time as an opportunity to evaluate his own way forward. His list of guest-conducting engagements is impressive, including orchestras of Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Cincinnati,

Naima Burrs became music director of Virginia’s Petersburg Symphony Orchestra this year, and William Henry Curry has served as music director of the Durham Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina since 2009.

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Valley Symphony, the Orange County Symphony, and the Southeast Symphony; he combines symphonic work with a thriving career as a recording-studio conductor. Of his audition for the San Bernardino post, he says, “You are expected to be overtly demure, respectful, perhaps extra kind. I was far more honest, blunt, and hard-edged than I had been in previous auditions,” he continues.

“But they responded well.”

Not only did he get the job, he says he was the orchestra’s and the board’s nearly unanimous pick. Parnther immediately got to work to change business as usual. Testing the waters, he met with 80 Black business and community leaders, and learned that only two had been to hear the orchestra perform. Clearly, there was work to do. When he auditioned in San Bernardino, Parnther says, the orchestra was nearly all-White. After being hired, he insisted on a sub-list of players that would include qualified Black instrumentalists. For his first concert in January 2020, he programmed a Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute, including Black gospel choir and soloists. “It was a hard-hitting concert,” he recalls. “We performed music that tackled slavery, racism, lynching, Jim Crow, Emmett Till, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and much more—not easy for some audiences to sit through,” he says, but adds, “We got more post-concert donations than ever before in the orchestra’s history.

“I wanted to nudge the orchestra to reflect the community,” he says. “My mission is to make good music with good people. My programming is based on what the orchestra needs to grow, what the community needs to grow, and what I need to grow.”

Finding Mentors If Black men conductors must sometimes assert themselves into a new space, Black women conductors may have to create one. The history of American conductors has been overwhelmingly White and overwhelmingly male, and ascendant Black women conductors find a glass ceiling that is double-paned.

Before forming the Black Pearl Chamber Ensemble in Philadelphia, Jeri Lynne Johnson says she had auditioned for a conducting job and after losing, asked AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

for feedback. “How can I improve?” she asked, and was told, “The orchestra doesn’t know how to market you. You don’t look like what an orchestra conductor should look like.”

Women conductors are rare— though they are gradually becoming less so since the days when Marin Alsop and JoAnn Falletta were the only names most people knew when it came to female music directors of U.S. orchestras. Black women have been even rarer. Kay George Roberts, now 71, trained as a violinist, played in the Nashville Symphony, studied conducting with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood, and had a guest-conducting career in the U.S. and Europe.

She settled in Massachusetts, joined the music faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, where she conducted the New England Orchestra and got involved with the UMass Lowell String Project, a music education program. In a 2009 UMass Lowell Magazine article, she said, “As an African-American woman, I am a minority within a minority…. You have to fight the isolation black classical musicians face, once they enter the mostly white world of symphony orchestras.”

Today, Kalena Bovell, the young Panamanian American assistant conductor of the Memphis Symphony, is beginning to make her way. Glass Marcano, a native of Venezuela, won the Orchestra Prize in the 2020 La Maestra International Competition for Women Conductors in Paris and is gaining notice as well.

In February 2022, Virginia’s Petersburg Symphony Orchestra hired Naima Burrs as music director.

I spoke with Jeri Lynne Johnson about her conducting career. A pianist, she graduated from Wellesley College and won the Benjamin E. Mays Fellowship to study music history and theory at the University of Chicago. She won a Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2005 and eventually would go on to guest conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and New Orleans Opera.

But long before she conducted those orchestras, when she was traveling on the conductor audition circuit, she did not receive employment offers from orchestras despite positive musical responses, because she didn’t look like what the audience expected “the Maestro” to look

Early in her career, conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson did not receive employment offers from orchestras despite positive musical responses, because she didn’t look like what the audience expected “the Maestro” to look like. She formed her own ensemble, Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, in 2008.

like. The rejection feedback, she recalls, “enraged” her. “That’s never a good place to be in and not a good place to plan a course of action,” Johnson says. “I was honestly ready to quit. But once I got into a head space where I was able to think, I understood that I had been released from the fantasy that talent and hard work alone were all I needed to succeed. Now I was free to do whatever I wanted to do.”

She wanted to start an orchestra.

She learned from her business-savvy father, “it was a matter of having an understanding of just what it takes,” she says. “I do know how to write well, fill out paperwork, pay a fee, register with the state, the IRS. I put one foot in front of the other.” (She also founded DEI Arts Consulting in 2015.)

When she founded the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra in 2008, Johnson was able to use some of what she had learned during her 2005 Taki Alsop

Ascendant Black women conductors find a glass ceiling that is double-paned.

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Kevin John Edusei guest conducts a Dallas Symphony Orchestra concert on January 7, 2022, shortly after he was named principal guest conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony, where he begins at the start of the 2022-23 season.

Andrew Grams leads the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director from 2013 to 2021.

Anthony Parnther conducts the San Bernardino Symphony, where he was appointed music director in 2019.

Jeri Lynne Johnson conducts the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s “Gospel Goes Classical” concert, February 7, 2019.

Conducting Fellowship. “When I won the fellowship,” says Johnson, “it was the year Marin Alsop was appointed as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It was instructive for me to be behind the scenes”—part of the Taki Alsop fellowship involves mentoring by Alsop—“to watch her manage and negotiate that dynamic. There are always going to be obstacles and people who have issues with various images of authority. There are always going to be people to educate, whose minds need to be changed.”

Alsop has inspired not just Black women. Joseph F. Young—music director of the Berkeley Symphony and artistic director of ensembles at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore—had a fortu-

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Joseph Young conducts the Berkeley Symphony at Zellerbach Hall. He became the orchestra’s music director in 2019, and also serves as artistic director of ensembles at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

itous meeting with Alsop in 2007. Raised in Goosecreek, South Carolina and the introverted son of a military father, Young had a dream to conduct. With a degree from the University of South Carolina, he seemed headed for a career in music education. “I just went up to Alsop and asked her, ‘What should I do?’

She said, ‘Come and study with me.’ ” He began conducting studies at Peabody through the conservatory’s Conducting Fellows Program in conjunction with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. “It changed my life,” he says. At Peabody, he studied conducting under Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar, and he served as a student and assistant to Alsop at the Baltimore Symphony.

Like Jeri Lynne Johnson, Young

witnessed Alsop beginning her tenure, making history, negotiating the sometimes patchy terrain of newly broken ground as the Baltimore Symphony’s first woman music director. It was a moment of inspiration for Young, he says, to “watch someone like that deal with issues she had to deal with, the first woman to come in and make a difference. It helped me translate it to my life. If she can find a way to persevere over adversity, how can I do the same as a Black man?”

As a young Black conductor emerging at a complex time, Young is thoughtful about the current moment and what it bodes for the future of the industry.

“This renaissance that’s happening now and where it’s coming from—I hope it’s not a trend,” he says. “I hope we learn

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something from it, use it to grow and develop as an industry.”

What’s Next Kevin John Edusei, in his eighth and final season as chief conductor of the Munich Symphony, begins a new post as principal guest conductor at the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in 2022-23.

A native of Bielefeld, Germany, he has spent time in the U.S. at the conducting program at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he worked with David Zinman. He had studied orchestral conducting, timpani and percussion, and sound engineering, but the Aspen experience inspired him to focus on conducting as a profession. He returned to Germany and got a position as First Kapellmeister at the Bielefeld Opera.

Of mixed-race background (German and Ghanian), he identifies as Afro-European, and has performed and recorded with London’s Chineke! Orchestra, which is majority-Black and ethnically diverse. Having grown up in situations where he was the lone person of color, he remembers the first time he conducted

Chineke! and looked down from the podium. “There was one moment before the first rehearsal in London,” he recalls.

“The orchestra tuned, and I got to the podium. I was in shock of the beauty of the orchestra. I couldn’t talk anymore, there was something that resonated so deeply with me.” Edusei sees this moment as a challenge to the survival of artistic institutions, in both America and Europe. Even in 2016, Edusei says, “I thought about my role as an artist, before Black Lives Matter took off. So when the debate sparked, I was already in that discussion.”

It’s a discussion that intensified.

“Cultural institutions can only benefit when they accept the challenge to look at diversity across the entire organization: the orchestra, staff, patrons and the audience,” he says. “Look at every factor that defines the artistic experience—in a creative way! How can we let people take part in this and let people know they belong?”

It’s a question that leads back to orchestra leadership. With the numbers of working Black conductors on the

rise, a Black music director of a major American orchestra may be in sight— while we must also acknowledge the many Black conductors who have served as music directors of smaller orchestras over the years. “I see no reason why there would not be a minority figure to rise to the podium the way that Obama rose to the White House,” says Andrew Grams.

“We now have a trend of organizations embracing diversity in programming and artists—for now. For things to not be trends but to be lasting cultural developments, it takes participants in those changes to rise to the moment and to keep carrying the standard forward.”

ROSALYN STORY is a Dallas-based writer and violinist who performs in the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, and other ensembles. She is author of And So I Sing: African-American Divas of Opera and Concert (1990) and three novels: More Than You Know (2004), Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans (2010), and Sing Her Name (2022), the latter inspired by the life of soprano Sissieretta Jones.

Gain the skills and confidence to face today’s musical arts challenges Eastman’s Online Master of Arts in Music Leadership Eastman Case Studies

Learn More at iml.esm.rochester.edu

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In the Main Stream Digital efforts are part of the “new normal” for orchestras. Even as in-person concerts have mostly resumed, orchestras continue to adapt and expand their virtual offerings with online subscriptions, proprietary streaming platforms, and other tech. What’s the right balance between virtual and in-person music-making? And how does an orchestra turn a concert stream into an income stream?

By Vivien Schweitzer

I

n the spring of 2020, COVID-19 forced orchestras to hurriedly explore streaming options to reach audiences stuck at home, but pioneers such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra were already far ahead of the pandemic pack. Now, according to Nico Muhly, who composed the digital Throughline for the San Francisco Symphony’s Hall to Home series, the question is how “technology factors into a traditional symphonic or operatic environment, both artistically and physically.”

As COVID restrictions have mostly been lifted, orchestras nationwide are taking varying approaches to this broad question. The San Francisco Symphony, says Interim CEO Matthew Spivey, has long had “an experimental mindset.” Before the pandemic it had fo-

cused on small-scale online experiments, then shifted to larger-scale, rapidly produced projects during the lockdowns.

Now “the biggest shift is volume,” Spivey says. “Digital will be a smaller percent-

projects examine local culture. The four-part video and podcast series CURRENTS features stories with a Bay Area connection, such as “Enter the Pipa,” which highlights the traditions of San Francisco’s Chinese community. The most important takeaway from these pandemic projects, says Spivey, is “the power of story and narrative in digital formats.”

Audiences are eager for storytelling, he says, adding, “The end-user experiences are much better when there’s some kind of contextual framing, because a media experience can become very flat very quickly to today’s audiences without other dimensions to it.” Audiences also gravitate towards projects that feature collaborations between artists in different disciplines, he points out, an idea that resonates strongly when Spivey

In addition to providing highquality content for local audiences, streaming has dramatically expanded the global reach of many orchestras.

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age of what we do but the experimental mindset still applies.”

Some of the San Francisco Symphony’s most successful recent digital

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and his colleagues plan both live and digital programs. On June 1 the orchestra will release an hour-long concert film of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale, conceived by the British director and designer Netia Jones.

Narrative arcs are also propelling the Cleveland Orchestra’s digital endeavors. During the pandemic “the full potential of storytelling revealed itself,” said President and CEO André Gremillet. “Everyone knows that Cleveland is one of the world’s best orchestras. But what is behind this excellence? There’s a hunger for more of the story about the people making music as well as the music itself, which this platform allows us to give people. That’s

very exciting because that’s something we’ve never really tackled and can’t tackle in the concert hall.”

Cleveland’s In Focus series, hosted

experience. Programs include features about how the conductor Herbert Blomstedt elicits memorable performances, conversations with John Adams about his own music and those of his contemporaries, and a program with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst discussing something unexpected: the experience and importance of silence. However, no matter how high-quality the content, says Cleveland’s Chief Brand Officer Ross Binnie, it’s always a challenge to compete for attention in the Netflix era.

During the height of the pandemic, the New York Philharmonic used streaming as a marketing, public relations, subscriber, donor, and board

While digital media has undoubtedly attracted new listeners from both local and far-flung locations, what is the potential to monetize these platforms?

Kristen_Loken

Roger Mastroianni/The Cleveland Orchestra

on the orchestra’s proprietary Adella website and app (named after the orchestra’s founder, Adella Prentiss Hughes) is designed to enhance the live concert

Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads a program of music by Respighi, Walker, and Tchaikovsky for one of the orchestra’s digital streams.

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

San Francisco Symphony bassist Scott Pingel gets ready to perform Nico Muhly’s Throughline during the filming of the new work for the San Francisco Symphony’s Hall to Home digital series.

In addition to online concerts and events, the New York Philharmonic plans to stream live concerts for free on a 50-foot digital wall in the public lobby of the renovated David Geffen Hall this fall.

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cultivation tool, says Vice President for External Affairs Adam Crane. The orchestra currently offers a $4.99 monthly subscription to livestreams of recent concerts on its own NYPhil+ channel, such as cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason performing the Dvořák concerto, as well as historic performances including a 1982 concert of Leontyne Price singing Mozart and Strauss led by then-Music Director Zubin Mehta. But the Philharmonic hasn’t been able to record much new content, adds Crane, because of its peripatetic status during the extensive renovation of its home, David Geffen Hall (scheduled to re-open on October 12). The orchestra is re-evaluating its strategy for the refurbished and updated hall, which will have a 50-foot digital wall in the lobby where the orchestra will stream live concerts to the public for free.

The Seattle Symphony charges $12.99 a month (or $129 annually) for its Seattle Symphony Live platform, which launched in 2020 and features on-demand livestreams. Its educational programming, such as the Meet the Instruments series, as well as family concerts, are available for free. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Replay platform includes many archival concerts, as well as programs dedicated to women composers (all of them are free). The DSO’s Paradise Jazz Series in the 202122 season is free for DSO subscribers and donors of $125 or more; other listeners

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New York Philharmonic

Composer Nico Muhly leads his Throughline for the San Francisco Symphony’s Hall to Home digital series.

Muhly says that with online content now a part of life at orchestras, the question is how “technology factors into a traditional symphonic or operatic environment, both artistically and physically.”

“We’ve never been very interested in just taking the typical concert experience and replicating it online,” says San Francisco Symphony Interim CEO Matthew Spivey, “but are interested in things we could create in a digital media space that can only exist in that environment.”

A graphic from the New York Philharmonic shows the multiple devices that can access its streaming platforms, which offer recorded programs and historic performances on-demand.

can buy single tickets for $12. CSOtv, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s on-demand platform of livestreams and educational features, is free.

Orchestras without the budget for proprietary streaming platforms have continued to rely on YouTube, Facebook Live, and other outlets, while experimenting with content. The Canton Symphony Orchestra in Ohio, for example, produces “Orchestrating Change,” a podcast exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion in the orchestra field. Three

recent episodes include interviews with conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson (founder and artistic director of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra in Philadelphia), composer Angelica Negrón, and Jazmín Morales, founder of Fortissima, a leadership program for women of color in classical music.

Regional ensembles are also providing online content via lectures and innovative concerts. In Indiana, the South Bend Symphony Orchestra and St. Joseph Public Library jointly host-

SUMMER 2022

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra

“We believe that what we are producing for this digital platform has value. We’re very careful with the concept of free content,” says Cleveland Orchestra President and CEO André Gremillet.

ed a three-week, live-streamed book club symposium to address the lack of diversity in orchestral repertoire. Pennsylvania’s Erie Philharmonic performed a free concert on April 13 that explored how jazz, blues, work songs, and spirituals influenced and blended with the European classical tradition to create a uniquely American sound, featuring works by Black composers Duke Ellington, William Grant Still, and Adolphus Hailstork. And talk about a multi-media approach: the in-person event was recorded the following day for broadcast and streaming on local television, radio, and Facebook Live. Footage from the April 13 concert will also be used in an episode of the Philharmonic’s free virtual youth concerts, which will explore the life of Black composer and Erie native Harry T. Burleigh.

Global Expansion There’s no question that in addition to providing high-quality content for local audiences, streaming has dramatically expanded the global reach of many orchestras. Over 22 percent of the Cleveland Orchestra’s digital audience is outside the U.S., which Ross says is “terrifically gratifying, especially as we haven’t really done any marketing and it’s all been organic.” As of April 2021, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Sessions series on CSOtv had garnered audiences in 27 countries and 52 U.S. states and

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Canton Symphony Orchestra

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, an early adopter of digital media, posted concerts and other content online well before other orchestras moved into the virtual realm during the pandemic. The DSO Replay platform features videos of past and current performances, interviews with conductors and musicians, and a “Classroom Edition” for young people.

The Canton Symphony Orchestra’s “Orchestrating Change” podcasts, posted on YouTube, feature conversations about making the concert hall a more welcome place for previously ignored communities and creating greater equity, diversity, and inclusion at orchestras.

territories, as CSO President Jeff Alexander told the Chicago Tribune.

While digital media has undoubtedly attracted new listeners from both local and far-flung locations, is there really any potential to monetize these platforms? According to Spivey, the pandemic presented an opportunity for the San Francisco Symphony to experiment with monetization of streaming platforms—but while “there is some revenue attached to it,” he says, “that’s never been the primary driver.” The orchestra has

shifted towards free content in order “to reach new and different audiences, have a deeper connection with existing audiences, and expand the range of what the art form can be. We’ve never been very interested in just taking the typical concert experience and replicating it online, but are interested in things we could create in a digital media space that can only exist in that environment. That will be a big part of our strategy moving forward.”

Nico Muhly describes the process of writing Throughline as “exhilarating and

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San Francisco Symphony

thrilling.” During the production of the piece, pandemic precautions meant that a maximum of six orchestral players, and no winds or brass, were on stage at one time. Each of the score’s 13 movements is a mini concerto and soloists were recorded remotely. “It feels like we’re being scrappy and resourceful and all the things that musicians can be, but there was also an element of mild despair to it,” he says, speaking about the experience in light of the lockdowns that necessitated such compositions. “To make work at that time was simultaneously amazing, but also reinforced a certain distance.”

The orchestral field is of course not the only industry to grapple with how to monetize online content: after initially offering content for free, newspapers and magazines struggled for years with figuring out how to coax consumers to pay.

Orchestra consultant Audrey Bergauer has outlined two post-pandemic scenarios that orchestra administrators might consider: the first is to provide all online content as a free bonus to paid subscriptions, while allowing other users to enjoy some free livestreams before encountering a paywall. The other scenario would capture contact information about users and potential patrons as the primary goal. No doubt there are many other strategies, with even more emerging.

Whichever route orchestra executives might choose, “monetizing media is a tricky thing when media is so widely available. It’s not that it cannot be done, but the conditions have to be really just right,” says Spivey.

At the Cleveland Orchestra, the conditions are indeed just ripe to monetize. Leaders there point out that the

A scene from the San Francisco Symphony’s online CURRENTS: Rhythm Spirits program, which was curated by multi-instrumentalist and composer Zakir Hussain.

Orchestras without the budget for proprietary platforms are posting innovative content on YouTube and Facebook Live—and are also streaming concerts and documentaries via local radio and TV stations. digital arena is still a work in progress and that financial success can be measured by both direct and indirect revenues. “One of the issues in our industry is that we don’t give enough time for major new initiatives to demonstrate their success, because we are so undercapitalized and resources are always such an issue.

That’s sometimes why we give up too quickly as an industry on important new

initiatives for the future,” says Gremillet.

Cleveland’s Adella platform includes free content from the archive, plus a podcast and performance highlights. Premium content such as the In Focus series is available for $15/month. In 2022-23, subscribers will receive Adella Premium for no additional fee. “As a principle,” says Gremillet, “we believe that what we are producing for this digital platform has value, which should be acknowledged. We’re very careful with the concept of free content.”

While exploring possible avenues for monetization, orchestras must adhere to contract stipulations with musicians about multimedia and possibly provide additional compensation, potentially a challenge if digital endeavors are producing no revenue. Early in the pandemic, branches of the American Federation of Musicians ratified a temporary modification of a national contract pertaining to multimedia compensation, which is scheduled to expire in June 2022.

Before the pandemic forced the

SUMMER 2022

Roger Mastroianni/The Cleveland Orchestra

Roger Mastroianni/The Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra

Behind the scenes as the Cleveland Orchestra captures a performance for its streaming platforms.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Adella platform and app (named for orchestra founder Adella Prentiss Hughes) include concerts as well as chats and interviews with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and guest artists including composer and conductor John Adams and saxophonist Steven Banks, among others.

AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG

widespread adoption of streaming, an orchestra’s financial standing impacted the scale of its innovation in other areas, such as commissioning new works or programming pieces with unusual instrumentation or other requirements. In the digital realm, as Muhly points out, “it literally does just come down to money and whether your hall has the infrastructure. Do you have enough videographers on staff to do this? Do you have people to direct it?”

As for the future of made-for-digital works, Muhly emphasizes that it’s not something that anyone except composers with well-equipped studios can realistically be expected to do. Muhly, who has composed film scores as well as orchestral works and operas, recalls that when composing Throughline in 2020, he approached it as a film score with cues and sub cues. “It’s really important to reiterate that at the beginning of the pandemic,” he says, “there was this assumption that musicians were both totally happy to do this and digitally technically literate and had the equipment.”

Going forward, digital media is a work in progress for artists, audiences, and administrators, with issues of content, financial structure, payment, and accessibility evolving. With predictions of COVID surges continuing to make headlines, it’s also impossible to predict if and when orchestras might need to rely more heavily on digital content. “For me, the headline is: we haven’t figured every-

thing out,” says Gremillet. “And honestly, I would be very suspicious if anyone in our business tells you that they have.”

VIVIEN SCHWEITZER is a Jersey City-based journalist and pianist who writes about music for publications including The Economist. Her first book, A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera, was selected as one of w’s “Best Books We Read in 2021.”

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Coda

An American in Odessa Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor Hobart Earle has a unique perspective on Ukraine: he’s been the music director of the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra since 1991. For more than two decades, the American ex-pat has soaked in the rich cultural life of the city and contributed to it as well, commissioning young composers, introducing new works, and taking part in Ukraine’s musical scene.

Here, Earle reflects on life in Odessa as it was until very recently—in contrast with today’s reality, during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (second from right) and Odessa Philharmonic Music Director Hobart Earle (right) after a performance in Odessa.

With them are the governor of the Odessa region, left, and the director of Philharmonic Hall.

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Courtesy of Hobart Earle

The chance to gain a deeper pery first concert with the Odessa Philharmonic spective on the music of the great Orchestra was during the twilight of the USSR, composers from that part of the so I’ve witnessed Ukraine’s modern era of indeworld was an enormous attraction. pendence from day one. A vast amount of water has gone The city of Oistrakh and Milstein, under the bridge since then. The orchestra and I have traveled Gilels and Richter is often detogether far and wide—the Odessa Philharmonic became the scribed as a haven of tolerance, and first orchestra from Ukraine to cross both the Atlantic and the indeed, Odessa’s storied history as Equator to perform—and we’re the only performing arts instiHobart Earle leads the a truly multinational metropolis tution in the country to have our funding status raised twice.

Odessa Philharmonic. is also awash with tales of foreigners However, perhaps of more value, we built a loyal and steadfast who arrived—and stayed. A few years ago, the irony of being audience at home in our 19th-century concert hall in downannounced before a concert—in Moscow, of all places—as “an town Odessa, an architectural gem in Venetian Gothic style, a Odessan of American origin” was in fact a huge compliment. few blocks from the coast of the Black Sea. Those were happier times: life in a In my early years in Odessa, encity—and region—where classical music countering an institution well-versed in is an integral part of life. Fast-forward to Today, the musicians of Soviet musical traditions, and repertoire March 2014, the day after Russia’s annexfrom Mussorgsky to Schnittke, one of my ation of Crimea. At my initiative, we did a conscious strategies was to bring previously the Odessa Philharmonic flash mob in the Odessa Fish Market, with unperformed Western music to the orches- Orchestra are in civilian the orchestra playing music from Beethotra—Mahler and Bruckner symphonies, ven’s Ninth. The video went viral, made its Elgar, Copland, Bernstein, Alban Berg, defense units. way to a film festival in California. It’s an and more. This was combined with world example of classical music playing a role, premieres, such as the Viennese composer responding to a contemporary crisis. For eight long years, we Theodor Berger’s last composition, which was still unperall witnessed the slow crescendo to the insanity that is occurformed years after his death in 1992. We gave the Austrian ring today. And yet, until February 2022, concert halls repremiere of Berger’s Fonofolium in Vienna’s Musikverein in mained full to the brim. Live webcasts during pandemic inter2001—the third of our five evenings in that musical mecca ruptions included the world premiere of Konstantin Boyarsky’s over the years with repertoire including such warhorses as viola concerto. The long-overdue restoration of Philharmonic Mahler’s Sixth and Shostakovich’s Eighth. More recently, we Hall, part of an architectural program initiated by President created an annual position of composer-in-residence for young Zelensky, began in earnest just this past December.

Ukrainian composers.

Today, my musicians are in civilian defense units. But Having grown up overseas, as an American ex-pat, I’ve “hope dies last,” as the local saying goes. A well-known been a foreigner since birth. When I made the move from patriotic expression has acquired an entirely new symbolism: Vienna to Odessa, I added Russian and Ukrainian to my lan“Cлава Yкраїні!” (“Glory to Ukraine!”). guages, fascinated to immerse myself into yet another culture.

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