delicate balance between the artistic goals and the business imperatives is crucial and is one of the aspects that makes this job both exciting and challenging. I didn’t go to business school to work in the for-profit world. My goal was always to run a great orchestra, or music festival. But the business discipline that I acquired running a for-profit company I find invaluable. When you are managing a shareholder's or owner's money, you learn quickly about the impact of your decisions on the bottomline, and about the importance of being fiscally responsible in order to achieve your goals. And I think that has served me really well, now that I have to make these decisions for a much greater purpose and goal, acting as steward of an invaluable asset for the overall community. When and why did you first fall in love with classical music? I remember as a child hearing a recording of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with Wilhelm Kempff, and I believe with the conductor Ferdinand Leitner, an old Deutsche Grammophon recording with the Berlin Philharmonic. And during the slow movement of that C-minor concerto, I remember thinking “this is it, this is what I love.” What was your first memory or awareness of The Cleveland Orchestra? As a really young kid, I remember hearing Cleveland's weekly broadcasts, carried by the CBC. I have a more recent memory, when I studied in New York with pianist Grant Johannesen after he had been president of the Cleveland Institute of Music. I remember him lending me a private recording of a rehearsal with Robert Casadesus and George Szell, of a Mozart piano concerto. And it gave such a vivid sense of
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what this orchestra was capable of, and of its incredible work ethic. Having said that, I believe this orchestra has only gotten better since that time, and the artistic partnership between the Orchestra and Franz WelserMöst is unique in the world. Please talk about your time with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra . . . New Jersey was my first orchestra, so it was a big learning experience for me. It is a good example of where my for-profit and business training was crucial. When I came onboard, the New Jersey Symphony was in a very difficult position financially. What made it possible for the orchestra to be in much better shape when I left five years later? First, we were all united, working as a board, staff, and musicians on solving the issues together. That unity of purpose really made the difference. Second, we were always focused on the mission of the orchestra, and made decisions accordingly. And the third thing, New Jersey is where I discovered that this — running an orchestra — was right for me. And I loved every part of it, whether on the artistic side, or the fundraising side, or working with the community. You often may want to do something, and you think you are going to like it, obviously that’s why I got into this business, but until you’ve actually done it, you don’t know. And about running an organ company . . . The pipe organ world is a very small world, but a very dynamic one. First off, I had the pleasure of discovering the organ music repertoire itself — which I did not really know. On the administrative side, this was my first company. I trained with the outgoing president one-on-one for two years, basically in the same way that the artisans were trained in the shop, in the apprenticeship system that goes back all the
Meet the Executive Director
The Cleveland Orchestra