Monday, December 21, 2009

And for our next trick...


The moment you finish one concert, you are already focusing on the next one...or even further in the future.

Right now we are in the midst of planning for our 2010/2011 season, a process that takes about 6 months to put together. Season planning is one of those elements that is rarely ever seen beyond the administrative offices of an arts organization. When planning a season there are a whole host of issues that need to be taken into consideration. The scheduling calculus regarding the availability of venue, artists, what other arts organizations arts are doing, all of these are factors that require require a lot of flexibility and creativity.

Jung-Ho is putting together next season from an artistic point of view - pulling everything together from the programming side of things. We start with a white board with all our concert slots and then discuss them as a team, writing up every idea on post-it-notes and continuously refining. We are now looking multiple years in advance - all the way out to 2015! Attached is a photo of our current planning calendar - would you look at all those post-its!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

West Coast vs. East Coast orchestra management - is there a difference?

As many of you know, Jung-Ho Pak serves as artistic director for both Orchestra Nova San Diego and the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra (as well as several other groups around the country - he's a very busy guy.) Tomorrow, I'll be leaving sunny So Cal and traveling to the Cape to attend CCSO's holiday concerts, meet my artistic and education colleagues, and see what it's like to manage an orchestra more than twice our size in a city one fifth the size of San Diego. I'll get the chance to watch performances from backstage and from the audience (a rarity for me), chat with musicians, and watch Jung-Ho with his "other family."

We're in a pretty unique situation - having a sister orchestra 3,000 miles away that we can cross-train, cross-market, and share resources (guest artists, music) and ideas with. Granted, putting on a concert is fairly universal. But who attends, why they donate, and the overall Cape Cod culture is what I'm looking forward to seeing. At least there's no snow in the forecast...