Pep rally for the arts

Despite the economy, the arts remain strong in Columbus, as demonstrated by this week's well-attended pep rally for the arts held at Mershon Auditorium on The Ohio State University campus.

The event was called "A WAY FORWARD: Arts and Economic Development" featuring Rocco Landesman (Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts), The Honorable Michael B. Coleman (Mayor of Columbus), Leslie H. Wexner (Chairman and CEO, Limited Brands) and Douglas F. Kridler (President and CEO, the Columbus Foundation).

The four panelists and their moderator, Executive Director of the Ohio Arts Council Julie Henahan, made it clear to the audience that the arts do indeed stimulate economic development in ways both measurable and immeasurable.  What makes people love where they live?  The arts are a major factor, for sure, but it often seems difficult to gauge their actual value.  Well, here are some amazing statistics: 11,000 jobs in Columbus are “directly tied to the arts,” generating $330 million annually in economic activity and producing $36 million in tax revenue for Columbus and the state.

During the rally several local organizations were mentioned with great pride, including OSU and its Wexner Center for the Arts, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Columbus College of Art and Design and COSI.  The Short North Arts District, an area just north of downtown which was radically transformed into a thriving neighborhood and tourist destination by its many art galleries, shops and unique examples of street art, was cited numerous times as the envy of other U.S. cities.

It's exciting to live in a city like Columbus which has such a thriving arts scene.  I do wish, however, that the Columbus Symphony could be a little better integrated into the community.  Ideally, the Columbus Symphony would be present at major community events such as the Columbus Arts Festival, First Night Columbus and Red White and Boom.  I'd love to see the orchestra presenting free concerts in various locations throughout the community, even on college campuses like OSU.  Wouldn't it be fantastic if the Columbus Symphony performed at a Short North Gallery Hop one of these months?

One important step has already been taken, as the symphony prepares to move its popular summer series, Picnic with the Pops, to the new downtown park, Columbus Commons.  The symphony's role in the development of a vibrant downtown aptly demonstrates the tremendous importance of the arts.

As stated by Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, "Columbus provides a model for other communities seeking to marshal the arts for economic development."  May the arts in Columbus and in other communities throughout the country continue to thrive.

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Conversation with Columbus Symphony President

Tony Woodcock, President of the New England Conservatory, recently posted an interview with Columbus Symphony President Roland Valliere on his blog.  As a member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Committee I have had the pleasure of working closely with Roland and I'm glad to see him being recognized in this manner.  Considering the dire financial condition of the Columbus Symphony over the past few years, it's amazing that we still have an orchestra, and Roland deserves a lot of credit for that.  Here is Tony Woodcock's conversation with Roland Valliere:

A conversation with Roland Valliere of the Columbus Symphony

Posted on September 1, 2011 by necmusic

Outsourcing Orchestra Administration: The Columbus Symphony Turns Crisis into Opportunity

Roland Valliere

When Roland Valliere took over the Columbus Symphony in August 2009, the orchestra was on the brink of collapse. There had been a bitter work stoppage the previous year. The budget was unsustainable even after shortening the season and reducing the administrative staff.  There was no capitalization. The endowment had been spent to cover operating deficits. There was no line of credit, no cash reserves, no unrestricted endowment. And both the Music Director and Executive Director had left. Roland, who is all about reinvention and had masterminded a promising new high tech device that he believed would revolutionize the concert experience, felt there was an opportunity to turn things around by creating a new business model.  I talked to him—he is now the President and Chief Creative Officer– about the solutions he has put in place and how the orchestra is faring almost two years later.

Tony: Just before you went to Columbus, you had switched gears, left your previous job as Executive Director of the Kansas City Symphony to become an entrepreneur. The project you were working on is a fascinating example of your creativity.  Tell me about that.

Roland: I had created a prototype of what I called the Concert Companion—CoCo for short.

It’s a handheld device that offers explanatory text, program notes and video images in real time with the music. It’s analogous to the audio guides you can rent in a museum. The audio guides offer an aural enhancement of a visual experience. CoCo offered a textual enhancement of an aural experience. With funding from the Mellon, Knight, and Hewlett and Packard Foundations, we were able to do three rounds of testing over about five years. Then, we began a startup with the Juilliard School to produce some educational products under the Juilliard name called “Juilliard Discoveries.” That was my path in the Fall of 2008 when the economy tanked.  We were about to launch the second round of funding for the Juilliard startup and, unfortunately, our lead funder was invested with Bernie Madoff! The project went sideways because of that. It was just at this moment that the Columbus Symphony  called.

Columbus Symphony

Tony: The situation there was pretty dire, wasn’t it?

Roland: Well, the orchestra had a checkered history financially but a stellar artistic reputation. In 2007-08, there had been a lot of public hand-to-hand combat with a messy work stoppage. Before the work stoppage, the orchestra had been on a trajectory of moving toward a 52-week contract and a budget of $12.5 million. But that budget couldn’t be funded.  When I came in, the budget had been reduced to $9 million, which was viewed as sustainable. To get to that figure, they had reduced the season from 46 weeks to 38 weeks and the staff from 28 fulltime and 10 part-time to 18 fulltime and 4 part-time. At that time, there were 53 fulltime contracted musicians.

Tony: But, in fact, even those austerity measures weren’t enough, were they?

Roland: No. But, as you know, the Chinese character for “crisis” is made up of two characters that mean danger and opportunity. I felt there was opportunity in the situation so long as the organization was not hemorrhaging so badly that it couldn’t be revived.  I felt it could be revived and saw a chance to do something new.

Tony: Before you committed, you did something that was essential to your strategy.

Roland: Yes, this was a critical thing. I met with the head of the union and the orchestra committee and talked about some of the ideas I had. I told them I would need to work with them in close collaboration as partners—even though that had not always been the case there. And I wanted some assurance from them that this was their goal as well. If the communications were transparent, open and honest—and I assured them they would be from my perspective, then we would have a chance to move in a new direction. They were very supportive of that. The position would not have been attractive to me otherwise.

Tony: So, even the $9 million budget couldn’t be balanced?

Roland: That’s correct. This was true for a variety of reasons. We needed time to ramp up, we had lost momentum with subscription renewals, we had lost credibility with the public, and this had impacted the Annual Fund. When I put together a budget and added up the annualized revenue from ticket sales, fees and contributions, I realized that the budget, really to be sustainable, was only $7.5 million—about $1.5 million from where we were. So I put together a White Paper, The 21st Century Columbus Symphony, with the view forward, a new vision, and a different future, plus the corresponding need to fund that vision to the tune of $1.5 million which we called a Transition Fund. We had success in raising that. But at the same time the Annual Fund, mainly due to the economy, was proving even more challenging then we thought. It went off the rails in January 2010.  We didn’t meet our December goals and since we didn’t have a safety net, we found ourselves in a potentially devastating situation. This was no surprise to the board and musicians because I had projected that we would run out of funds in March if we didn’t raise the funding in advance of that. When fundraising ran short in December, it became evident we would have a severe problem and not be able to make payroll in February.

Tony: At which point, you turned to the board and musicians with four options?

Roland: Yes. The options went from bad to worse, including reducing the number of full time players (from 53 to 21), moving to a freelance orchestra (with no benefits or guaranteed services) or folding the tent completely.  Ultimately we agreed to further reduce the season (from 36 to 25 weeks) and consolidate the administration with the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA).  This was very difficult, especially for the musicians, and remarkably was achieved in a spirit of collaboration.

Tony:  So talk about the administrative reorganization.

Roland: By reducing the season, we were able to realize $1 million in savings but we needed to get to $1.5 million. So, the next step was to talk to the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA)and its President and CEO William B. Conner Jr.

William B. Connor

We discussed an administrative consolidation or merger, a process that took a month to figure out.

Tony: Explain what CAPA is, would you?

Roland: CAPA began in 1969 by saving from the wrecking ball the historic Ohio Theatre in Columbus, renovating that venue, and then operating it along with several other theatres it acquired/or managed in Columbus, New Haven, CT and other places. It provides shared services to a number of arts organizations including ticketing, marketing, public relations, finance, human resources, IT, and development/fundraising. What it offers each group is custom tailored to the group’s individual needs.

Tony: Describe the Columbus Symphony’s organizational arrangement with CAPA.

Roland: It functions much like a holding company. The Columbus Symphony’s board continues as before, with its own committees, fundraising work, Executive Committee, but the CAPA board has ultimate fiduciary responsibility. There is a kind of cross-fertilization on the two boards, with two of our board members, including our chairman Martin Inglis, sitting on the CAPA board. Bill Conner wears two hats as President and CEO of CAPA and as Managing Director and CEO of the Columbus Symphony.  He has management responsibility on a daily basis for the symphony.

Tony: Your position evolved into something that’s probably unique in symphony management, isn’t it?

Roland: Yes. A ship can have only one captain and we agreed that that should be Bill.  The board and musician leadership asked me to stick around to see the transition through and help set a future course. The CAPA arrangement went into effect in April 2010 and at that point I acquired a new title, that of President and Chief Creative Officer. I don’t think there’s another position like it in the industry.

My portfolio originally consisted of four key areas:
1.    to abet the integration with CAPA
2.    to facilitate the conclusion of our search for a new music director—which we did and hired Jean-Marie Zeitouni, who is a terrific catch.

Jean-Marie Zeitouni

3.    to lead the collective bargaining talks with the musicians’ union and negotiate a new contract before the expiration of the current agreement in August 2011. We did this last March and produced a new four year agreement. I thought it would be a six month process, but we concluded it in a week—a reflection of our resolve to work together, even in tough times, for the greater good of the organization.
4.    to create the “21st Century Columbus Symphony,” that is, to figure out the business model for going forward and guide this with CAPA and the Board. This is what I’m most focused on today.

Tony: How does your position dovetail with Bill Conner’s?

Roland: We’re joined at the hip, with Bill focused largely on the day-to-day running of the organization and me focused on strategy and innovation.  Both Bill and I, along the our Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni, report directly to the board through the chairman of the board.

Tony: You are now about 1 1/2 years into the arrangement with CAPA. How is it working out?

Roland: In the first full year of implementation, operating on a $7 million budget, we were able to eke out a small surplus. I had expected we would realize a savings of about $500,000 from the integration with CAPA, but in fact we were able to do better than that.  There was an upside in revenue, which we hadn’t anticipated. Both the City and the County stepped up to a major degree in way they never had before, each making multi-year $250,000 commitments. A number of corporations stood up too.

We have a five-year agreement with CAPA and our goals are threefold:

1.    stabilize the finances by balancing the budget, which we did last year and are on track to do this year

2.    establish a cash reserve so we could have an operating fund. Part of deal with CAPA was that they provide us with a line of credit. That was a blood infusion that we desperately needed.

3.    build up the endowment to $20 million or more to generate revenue for the operating budget.

Tony: So, let’s talk about your vision for the 21st Century Columbus Symphony.

Roland:  Well, there are several themes. Education is key.  We’re coming to see that music and the arts can be windows for developing creative and innovative thinking, the ability to problem solve. How can the Columbus Symphony make a contribution to that? How can we make ourselves more accessible—perhaps in part by making our content available in a time- and space-shifted manner. We need to stop focusing on the traditional model and figure out how we can serve our community in our unique way. We need to find a way for the orchestra to do R&D, something that takes money and the freedom to fail.

Over the next one to three years, we’re looking at several things:

1.    Maintaining a budget that matches supply with demand

2.    Diversifying our concert locations so that next year instead of doing all 12 subscription concerts in the Ohio Theatre, which is too large, we will do eight there and four at the smaller Southern Theatre, fitting our repertoire to the theatre.

3.    Experimenting with new concert formats such as one-hour Rush Hour concerts and one-hour Noon Concerts.

4.    Utilizing the Internet and social media as marketing and education tools and offering more streaming or video opportunities.  We’ve discussed creating total access subscriptions, whereby premium subscribers would have access to the concerts both physically and virtually in a time- and space-shifted fashion.

At the end of the day, the Columbus Symphony exists to serve our community through the wonder of great music.  It’s about connecting the music to people.

In a world of lightning fast change, we need to embrace the opportunity that such change provides and muster the courage and resources required to take smart and calculated risks.

More survival techniques for orchestras

News of worldwide economic distress continues to pepper the media, with fears about the U.S. possibly heading into another recession making it ever more imperative that orchestra boards and managements carefully consider whether or not they are doing everything possible to place their orchestra in a position of relevance in the community.

I have already written posts on this topic, such as "Some orchestras' secrets of success , "April is the cruelest month" , "Connecting with the audience" , "Connecting, part II" and "Orchestral relevance".  I apologize for sounding like a broken record, but the problems plaguing U.S.orchestras have not gone away.   There is hope; I keep hearing of solutions which some orchestras have implemented.

The very latest news from U.S. orchestras, though, has been grim.   A stream of musician departures from the troubled Philadelphia Orchestra potentially threatens the orchestra's famous sound. The San Antonio Symphony is looking at a "significant" financial loss for the 2010-11 season - a loss which comes despite a 6% musician pay cut in 2011 and a 14% pay cut in 2009.  Donations (especially corporate gifts) in San Antonio are down, while costs are higher.  Unfortunately, many orchestras are all too familiar with that trend.

As I've said previously, the orchestras which survive the next few years will be the ones which figure out how to become not just relevant, but indispensable to the communities they serve.  The same old approach to predictable programs in familiar venues and time slots is simply not working anymore, as the older patrons who do cling to tradition are gradually becoming less mobile.  Younger potential audience members are being wooed by countless providers of culture and entertainment, both virtual and live.

Donations (a major source of orchestra revenue) are harder to come by in times of economic distress, as corporate and individual giving tends to be focused on social charities such as homeless shelters, food banks and hospitals rather than on perpetually struggling orchestras.  (Orchestra managements sometimes refer to this phenomenon as "donor fatigue".)  Orchestras' endowments are shriveling, and orchestras lacking collateral are at risk of collapse.  With resources so limited, orchestra managements must choose their outreach and innovative projects very carefully - yet outreach and innovation are essential.

The orchestras experiencing positive changes are the ones which have changed venues, formats, lengths and starting times of concerts.  They have made tickets easy to obtain and available singly (as opposed to subscription only).  They have lowered ticket prices.  They have introduced food and beverages to the concert experience.  They have figured out what appeals to today's audience.

Furthermore, they have built connections between the musicians (including the music director) and the audience by having the conductor and musicians speak from the stage, by creating video and audio content to share online, and by hosting post-concert receptions or mixers.

Equally important is the connection between the orchestra and the community at large.  As far as I know, the only way to establish this critical connection is to constantly present the orchestra at important community events such as city-wide festivals (particularly arts festivals), New Years' Eve celebrations, downtown July 4th fireworks, sporting events, etc.  Any event, festival or sports team which is important to the city is the perfect (and necessary!) venue for the orchestra. 

There are many examples of orchestras which are implementing these changes. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians have the option of participating in community outreach (through teaching, coaching and chamber music) throughout the year for additional compensation.  The DSO recently presented a number of free, standing-room only community engagement concerts, along with open-air residencies at Greenfield Village and at the Ford House in Grosse Pointe.  The DSO is taking the orchestra to the people, in churches, synagogues, community halls and suburbs.

One of the most striking examples of integrating the orchestra into the community is found on the website of the Seattle Mariners:

Seattle Symphony Night
Blue Jays vs. Mariners
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 - 7:10 p.m.

Round up your friends and family members and join the Seattle Symphony at Safeco Field on Tuesday, August 16! Special group seating has been reserved and is available for you to purchase online. A portion of the tickets sold through this offer will benefit the Seattle Symphony.

Be sure to arrive early- new Music Director Ludovic Morlot will be throwing out the evening's first pitch and a group of Seattle Symphony musicians will be performing the National Anthem!

• DEADLINE TO PURCHASE: Monday, August 15 at NOON
• Game Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 - 7:10 p.m.
• Pricing:
  • $15 View Reserved (normally $20)
  • $32 Field Level (normally $40)
  • $37 Terrace Club Outfield (normally $47)
  • $7 from each ticket sold will benefit the Seattle Symphony!

Bravo to the Seattle Symphony for figuring out how to connect to the community by collaborating this way with the city's beloved baseball team! 

Another orchestra which seems to have figured out multiple ways to connect to the community is the Buffalo Philharmonic.  Free concerts, from birthday bashes to outdoor rock concerts (with orchestra) have been presented recently.  Like the Detroit Symphony, the BPO does not sit still - it performs in various neighborhoods and venues, bringing the music to the people, often free of charge.  The upcoming Season Sampler sounds enticing:

The free concert offers samples and  highlights of the BPO 2011-2012 season at Kleinhans Music Hall, featuring a pre-concert happy hour with drinks and appetizers from the BPO's restaurant partners. 

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra reports that 35% of its audience is younger than 35. How did that happen?  The formula is simple:

• shorter concerts
• cheaper tickets
• more partying

The TSO has gone out of its way to adjust the orchestra's schedule to its audience's schedule and desires, rather than vice versa.  Three innovative series: Afterworks, Casual and tsoundcheck have resulted from that effort, and this is how they are described on the TSO's website::

Skip rush hour and recharge at the end of your work day with light hors d’oevres and magnificent orchestral music! Host Tom Allen of the CBC will introduce the pieces that will linger in your mind as you arrive home for an early night.

Casual Concerts are performed without an intermission and are followed by a party for the whole audience in Roy Thomson Hall’s North Lobby. After the concert, mingle with TSO musicians and guest artists in a relaxed setting and enjoy live music by local bands.

tsoundcheck is an easy way to buy inexpensive concert tickets to the TSO. It lets young people take in some live classical music without spending a bundle.

You don't even have to be a student - if you're between the ages of 15 to 35, you're eligible for tsoundcheck.

And tsoundcheck tickets for TSO concerts are only $14!

For more information about tsoundcheck,
visit www.tsoundcheck.com.

The tsoundcheck series has been so successful that it has its own website.  Ticket sales have quadrupled since the series was implemented 9 years ago, proving that the TSO's determination to build a young audience paid off.  The TSO could have easily given up after the first year and cancelled their new series, since they couldn't have predicted that sales would quadruple in 9 years.  It takes time, patience and determination to build an audience and to firmly integrate an orchestra into the community.  But it could save the orchestra.

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K. David Van Hoesen's lengthy tenure with Lake Placid Sinfonietta

K. David Van Hoesen

Cultural commentator Norman Lebrecht reported on his blog that legendary bassoonist K.David Van Hoesen just retired from playing in the Lake Placid Sinfonietta.  Mr. Van Hoesen (fondly called "KD" by his students) is professor emeritus of bassoon at the Eastman School of Music and former principal bassoon of the Rochester Philharmonic.  His lifelong affiliation with the Lake Placid Sinfonietta began in 1947.

Mr. Van Hoesen's students populate the bassoon sections of orchestras nationwide, including but not limited to the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the National Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Honolulu Symphony, the Orlando Symphony, the Columbus Symphony, the Chautauqua Symphony.  His students pass along his wisdom to their private students and to their bassoon students at Juilliard, Oberlin, the Cleveland Institute, the New England Conservatory, the San Fransisco Conservatory.

As a bit of a tribute to KD, I've pasted below a performance of KD's former student Stephen Paulson (principal bassoon of the San Fransisco Symphony) performing Mozart Adagio K. 261 transcribed for bassoon and piano by K. David Van Hoesen:



Undoubtedly, Mr.Van Hoesen will find plenty of ways to keep busy during this new phase of his retirement.  We wish him the very best.


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Verdi Bassoon Concerto (really??)

Just a few years ago, an unpublished piece for bassoon and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi surfaced.near Verdi's hometown of Busseto (near Parma)  Although historians had long believed that Verdi had written concertos for solo instruments early in his career, this was the first actual discovery of one of those pieces.  Musicologist Fausto Pedretti found the Cappriccio for Bassoon and Orchestra, as it is called, in the archive of a small church in Busseto.  It's easy to hear in Cappriccio for Bassoon and Orchestra the influence of Rossini, who also wrote a bassoon concerto.  Isn't it interesting that such masters of Italian opera considered the bassoon to be an instrument worthy of solo concerto composition?

A cautionary tale (tail)

Hopefully, each of your bassoon swabs looks like this, with a tail on the end in case, heaven forbid, the swab gets stuck. A few years ago I experienced the unspeakable horror of getting a swab stuck....REALLY stuck, inside the wing joint of my bassoon.  It took Chris Weait's swab extractor, the physical strength of 2 adults, and long distance coaching by repairman Carl Sawicki via speaker phone to extract that swab.  It was not done without superficial damage to the interior wall of my wing joint, unfortunately.  The bassoon still played after that, but I strongly advise all bassoonists to avoid the trauma of emergency swab extraction at all costs.  I learned my lesson.  I will never again insert a tail-less swab into my bassoon, nor will I insert a swab which is not 100% free of knots.  


It's fortunate that I learned my lesson, because yesterday I experienced another swab incident.  This time it was a bocal swab, which I have found to be the safest and most effective tool for weekly bocal cleaning.  The swab simply broke, as you can see in the photo below, as I was pulling it through the bocal!

Thank heavens it had a tail, and I just pulled the swab back out by pulling the tail.  If there had been no tail on that swab (many swabs lack tails!) I suspect that my bocal would have been ruined. 

This reminds me of quip from the late legendary bassoonist Norman Herzberg.  Whenever a panicked student with a swab situation contacted him for advice, he replied that the best response to a stuck swab was "dinner and a movie"  followed, of course, by renewed effort with a fresh perspective!   (Back in those days, I don't think swabs had tails....)

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In case you missed Archie Carey's Evening of Bassoonery

Many of us bassoonists were disappointed that the live stream of Archie Carey's "An Evening of Bassoonery" apparently malfunctioned last night!  That's OK - it happens.  Meanwhile, here's a sampling of Archie Carey's work:

The Organism from Archie C on Vimeo.