Heading To St. Louis

I’m off to the 29th Annual Conductors Guild Conference, I’ll be there from Saturday, 6/15/13 through Monday, 6/17/2013 serving as a mentor for one-on-one sessions with conference attendees. I’ll be available to discuss the finer points of career development, starting and managing your own ensemble, networking, and more.

If you’re attending the conference, you can sign up for mentoring during registration and info on last minute registrations is available through the conference website.

So whether your’re in town for the Guild conference or not, feel free to get in touch to see about finding some time to meet. The best way to get in touch during the conference is via email or text, contact info for both options is available here. Or you could always throw caution to the wind and simply drop by the Union Station DoubleTree, located at 1820 Market St. One Union Station (in which case, this map of conference events will come in handy).

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house. I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why. In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu. For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, and love a good coffee drink.

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