I must admit, that my today's title is not very original, in fact it's the title of an article, which caught my attention thanks to the Das Kulturmanagement Blog (available only in German). But the article is coming at a moment, as I witness the Symphony Orchestra of the Slovak Radio being in big trouble, where CBC is dismantling its orchestra, and more: I simply couldn't resist any longer and had to post a blog-article myself as well. Surely, Christian will forgive me for that.
According to the original article in the Australian Sydney Morning Herald Justin Macdonnell, after having spent many years in the US as an artistic director, he comes to the conclusion that "throughout the English-speaking world, the board system of governance in the non-profit sector has been a miserable failure". His observation was - in short - that board members were slowly becoming business people [only], being focussed in the only thing they were good at: business, ... simply put: profit-oriented. Having read another episode of the earlier mentioned Columbus Symphony Orchestra struggling, is nicely illustrating an exception, and how the involved parties view eachother's role in it.
I would tend to agree both with Justin Macdonnell and Christian's analysis, that indeed art is not a 'business-business'. Although art is a strange and a slippery area as far as business is concerned: Millions have willingly been paid for Karajan's recordings, while now even better maestros (musically speaking) walk around our planet, who miss their chances because the orchestra is simply having a "budget-issue" - even though their yearly wage would be even far less than what Karajan would demand for a single recording. Let me describe a fictive situation: Like a Renoir; a piece of cloth with blurry coloured oil-based additions on its surface, turning it out to to the eye of the beholder to be a beautiful garden scene, where you can even smell the fragrant summer flowers in the garden. Howmuch is it worth? If a rich Japanese collector pays $1.7 million for it, it is considered to be the market price, and unfortunately our modest wallets' content would not suffice to buy it. But if our Japanese friend will suddenly have some bad luck, and his company go bancrupt, losing his fortune, he can always sell his painting.... that is; in the worst case, if nobody would be in need or want for it (not very likely though in the case of a Renoir, but purely for the sake of argument), then it suddenly became indeed a useless piece of cloth and he won' t be able to sell it at all.
Here's the point; we should indeed run our orchestras in such a way that every penny we spend can be justified. Have a good and a sound marketing strategy, yet realising, that orchestras are no oil-companies, that can easily increase the price of the tickets when winter comes, or another armed conflict in the Middle East would be pending. Therefore the marketing must be in balance with its artistic content - being based on purely a profit-and-loss analysis. Good quality art - performing art that is - has obviously its value. It only depends, howmuch you are willing to pay for it. That's a matter of educating your audience as well. If people never experienced an evening out to the concerts, it will unlikely be attracted to put down perhaps even $10. In the event, they were regular concert-goers, appreciating the whole atmosphere and entourage, then $50 would not be an issue. Orchestra governance is therefore more than sitting in a luxurious office, calculating this month's wages for the musicians (one of the biggest expenditures), making phone-calls to find a replacement (another few bucks over the counter), and distributing posters (printing costs!) for the upcoming concert. It is a serious matter, where the basic plus and minus do matter of course. But economy is not only calculating, it's also a great deal of psychology; a wrong signal can make the stock exchange crash within hours. The task is, to keep your audience's attention and interest. Here, being creative rather than only a book-keeper is essential. That's what some of the boards clearly missed. Unfortunately, people plan things solutions mostly as an "either - or" option, instead of an "as well - as". I would like to refer also to this ArtsJournal weblog written by Andrew Taylor on this matter.
Allow me to conclude with a quote by Albert Einstein, surely a man, which is viewed by most of us as being rational and a scientist pur sang, who said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge". And relatively speaking, this could apply to any given situation.
MS
According to the original article in the Australian Sydney Morning Herald Justin Macdonnell, after having spent many years in the US as an artistic director, he comes to the conclusion that "throughout the English-speaking world, the board system of governance in the non-profit sector has been a miserable failure". His observation was - in short - that board members were slowly becoming business people [only], being focussed in the only thing they were good at: business, ... simply put: profit-oriented. Having read another episode of the earlier mentioned Columbus Symphony Orchestra struggling, is nicely illustrating an exception, and how the involved parties view eachother's role in it.
I would tend to agree both with Justin Macdonnell and Christian's analysis, that indeed art is not a 'business-business'. Although art is a strange and a slippery area as far as business is concerned: Millions have willingly been paid for Karajan's recordings, while now even better maestros (musically speaking) walk around our planet, who miss their chances because the orchestra is simply having a "budget-issue" - even though their yearly wage would be even far less than what Karajan would demand for a single recording. Let me describe a fictive situation: Like a Renoir; a piece of cloth with blurry coloured oil-based additions on its surface, turning it out to to the eye of the beholder to be a beautiful garden scene, where you can even smell the fragrant summer flowers in the garden. Howmuch is it worth? If a rich Japanese collector pays $1.7 million for it, it is considered to be the market price, and unfortunately our modest wallets' content would not suffice to buy it. But if our Japanese friend will suddenly have some bad luck, and his company go bancrupt, losing his fortune, he can always sell his painting.... that is; in the worst case, if nobody would be in need or want for it (not very likely though in the case of a Renoir, but purely for the sake of argument), then it suddenly became indeed a useless piece of cloth and he won' t be able to sell it at all.
Here's the point; we should indeed run our orchestras in such a way that every penny we spend can be justified. Have a good and a sound marketing strategy, yet realising, that orchestras are no oil-companies, that can easily increase the price of the tickets when winter comes, or another armed conflict in the Middle East would be pending. Therefore the marketing must be in balance with its artistic content - being based on purely a profit-and-loss analysis. Good quality art - performing art that is - has obviously its value. It only depends, howmuch you are willing to pay for it. That's a matter of educating your audience as well. If people never experienced an evening out to the concerts, it will unlikely be attracted to put down perhaps even $10. In the event, they were regular concert-goers, appreciating the whole atmosphere and entourage, then $50 would not be an issue. Orchestra governance is therefore more than sitting in a luxurious office, calculating this month's wages for the musicians (one of the biggest expenditures), making phone-calls to find a replacement (another few bucks over the counter), and distributing posters (printing costs!) for the upcoming concert. It is a serious matter, where the basic plus and minus do matter of course. But economy is not only calculating, it's also a great deal of psychology; a wrong signal can make the stock exchange crash within hours. The task is, to keep your audience's attention and interest. Here, being creative rather than only a book-keeper is essential. That's what some of the boards clearly missed. Unfortunately, people plan things solutions mostly as an "either - or" option, instead of an "as well - as". I would like to refer also to this ArtsJournal weblog written by Andrew Taylor on this matter.
Allow me to conclude with a quote by Albert Einstein, surely a man, which is viewed by most of us as being rational and a scientist pur sang, who said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge". And relatively speaking, this could apply to any given situation.
MS
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