Conductor as CEO, blog

A few years ago, a friend asked me for advice. She’d been asked to direct Madama Butterfly and she was afraid to say yes because she was not Asian.

This happened at a time where Madama Butterfly is in the industry hot seat - both to be surgically examined for cultural authenticity pitfalls and as a vehicle for greater D...

There's a behavior that's so common in orchestras that most of us don't even notice it anymore. Someone in power enters the room and something shifts. People become a little more agreeable. A little more careful. A little more eager to be seen as helpful, competent, or likeable. We call it sucking up. And we may even resent the people who do it....

We talk a lot about inclusion in the arts. Bring your whole self. Every voice matters. Diversity makes us stronger.

And then we hand people a script for how to fit in: We tell musicians to interpret a phrase the way it's always been interpreted. We reward those who absorb the culture quickly.

What we're actually celebrating isn't ...

Empowerment is the fifth pillar of SPACE — and the one most arts cultures find awkward to try.

The rehearsal goes well. The performance feels amazing. And we walk offstage waiting for something — some acknowledgement that what just happened mattered.

Then…silence.

At some point, we've learned to ca...