October 11, 2023 • 57 mins
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In this episode, we welcome the dynamic Aubrey Bergauer, the brilliant mind behind the upcoming book 'Run it Like a Business.' Aubrey brings a fresh and thought-provoking perspective to our conversation, shedding new light on arts administration, nonprofit organizations, and her unique strategies for building and retaining arts audiences. With a passion for working offstage to bring performing arts to life, Aubrey's insights are sure to ignite your imagination for the future of our field.
As we delve deeper into the realm of arts administration, we highlight the critical role of data in evaluating art, the need for connection in music, and the potential benefits of vertical integration for arts organizations. From examining the user experience in classical music to discussing the importance of changing the narrative in arts administration, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. This conversation is a great reminder that the world of music doesn't end at the edge of the stage!
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Mentioned in this episode:
Aubrey’s website: https://www.aubreybergauer.com/
Aubrey's book, Run it Like a Business - pre-order it here!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we were recording, you were sharing with
me that this recitalopportunity has come up like a
full-on recital shared with apianist.
You'd play two sonatas andmaybe a solo piece that's
unaccompanied and the timeline.
And this person has gone aheadand looked into a venue and it's
like this opportunity is beingpresented before you and it
feels.
You described how it felt.
(00:20):
How did it feel?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It feels scary but also exciting, which I was
saying is probably just theright thing for what I need to
be doing yes, yes, so they'llpush you out of your comfort
zone a little bit, yeah.
There's something aboutreconnecting to yourself as a
musician, that you make thechoices.
You're owning it.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
You'll own every aspect of that.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Right, like all the creative decisions, all the
musical decisions will be mineor work together with whatever
Collaboratively with one otherperson.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
It's really.
I mean, it's exciting to thinkabout, and we were like start to
talking heavily about this andthen stuff's like should we
record?
Like probably so we're.
I'm trying to recap what goldwas coming up, but I think one
of the things that you alsomentioned was this idea that
trusting, when the concrete workoffer isn't sitting in front of
(01:08):
your face and you don't havethat guarantee of it's going to
support your income or yourcareer in some monetary way, it
somehow causes a reaction oflike this isn't as valuable, but
it really is.
It's.
Space has been created for youto go for this opportunity and
it could turn into an abundanceof who knows what on the other
(01:28):
side of it, like just in termsof following the direction of
the opportunities that arepresented that are scary and
also exciting.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
For sure, different direction for the year.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Maybe, maybe.
Welcome to the Musician Centricpodcast.
We are two freelance violistsliving and laughing our way
through conversations thatexplore what it means to be a
professional musician in today'sworld.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I'm Steph and I'm Liz and we're so glad you've joined
us.
Let's dive in.
I was just talking withsomebody.
He is a jazz musician and we'veknown each other for a very
long time.
We were at a jam session lastnight and he was sitting there
and he's like man, thisenvironment.
I feel so at home right now.
(02:13):
I feel so comfortable and justlike I came up in this
environment, just go into allthese sessions and just sitting
in and playing and like beinguncomfortable.
And I said, this environment islike literally the opposite of
feeling at home or at ease forme.
I, when I think about what didI say last night?
He laughed really hard.
I was like when I'm in thisenvironment, I just feel a well
(02:37):
of regret for how many chances Ididn't take.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Wow, oh, that's interesting, I know, I know, I
mean, what is it about a jam?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
session.
It's particularly dramatic tosay that, because that's not
really true.
I mean, I love my life, don'tget me wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, there's, there's some kernel of truth in
there.
Yes, so there's something aboutit.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So here we are.
We're talking about takingchances with our creative lives.
That world is for sure thecreative chance I didn't take
when I was younger and couldhave.
I was the jazz yes, ok.
So by the time I graduatedundergrad I was mostly spending
time in the jazz world, asidefrom gigs I was getting paid to
(03:20):
do and you know my schoolrequirements and recitals and
stuff but I was taking jazztheory classes.
I was playing on all my friendsrecitals.
I had a really good friend,brilliant pianist, named Yuiichi
Uzeki, who's now back in Japan,but he wrote all kinds of
original tunes and he actuallywrote tunes for me to play solo
on people's recitals and stuff.
(03:40):
And so right at the end of mytime there and into the summer
before I moved, I was startingto learn how to improvise with
him.
We would just go in together,he'd play, and then he'd be like
just go, just do stuff.
I'd be like I don't know whatI'm doing, this is terrible, I
don't know what to do.
Give me a piece of paper withnotes on it, please.
And then I moved away, as we'vetalked about before, and it
(04:03):
just became a thing that I usedto do.
You know that I used to dabblein.
It just became this thing and Iput it away and I went to grad
school down here and I startedplaying in the symphonic world
and I'm happy to reconnect withchamber music in a real serious
way.
But I've not ventured into thatworld but I feel myself being
called to it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm not necessarily jazz.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, it's the hot cash $100.
$100 a night in jazz I can make.
But yeah, that's exactly whatyou were talking about.
It's an intangible.
I feel like I'm on the verge,and I've felt this way for a
while.
I told my friend this lastthing I feel like I'm on the
verge of being ready toexperiment.
I bought all the equipment lastyear.
(04:45):
I'm trying to walk the talk,but I also had so many mental
and emotional inhibitors to mycreativity over the last several
months that I feel like I'm onthe precipice of a point where I
can say, okay, now go do thisthing, you're ready, you set
yourself up, just start messingaround and see what happens.
(05:06):
So, actually, and then I gotgreat advice, which was to
contact all my buddies fromschool and ask them to suggest a
solo that I should transcribeone a month and I should just do
that.
I should just ask them foradvice and they'll give me solos
and I'll make a list, and thenI transcribe one a month and I
just do that.
(05:27):
And he's like, by the end ofthe year you'll have so much
material for solos.
He's like you'll be infinitelyin a better place than you are
right now.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Like you'll know so much more that is.
So that's such a good step forsomebody who is not comfortable
making up their own stuff.
You know, what I always findintimidating about jazz is all
of the theory, all of the chordchanges and knowing what happens
and what scale and all thatstuff.
But that doesn't have to be thefirst step.
It could be something that weunderstand.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
We have the skills to do that.
It's not easy, but we have theskills to do it.
He also did give me the caveat,though he's like you've also
got to learn your scales.
We don't play the same scales.
I was like no, no, you play allthe scales, we just play two of
them, is what you're saying?
We only know two of them.
So I could do that.
(06:17):
That part doesn't scare mebecause we've been practicing
scales our whole lives.
The part that scares me is likeputting the headphones on and
then trying to catch everythingthat fricking John Coltrane does
on a solo.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, maybe you don't start there.
That's what I said.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I was like okay, you get to give me my first solo,
but please go easy on me.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, make it like 101 levels.
What a great idea.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's inspiring.
It gave me this feeling of likeI could do that.
I could spend time once a monthdoing that.
It's not that crazy.
I don't know.
Maybe I'll find ways to holdmyself accountable online or
something like that.
We'll see, We'll see.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, you know, I'll bring this up now because we're
both reading the same book rightnow, called Creative Success,
now by Astrid Baumgartner, and Iwonder if we should do it for
our Joy Loves company, becausethere's an accompanying workbook
, right?
What brings it to mind is thatshe's like one of the steps is
like figure out what yourpurpose is according to your
(07:17):
values, etc.
Etc.
But if you don't feel like youhave the purpose, one of the
alternatives is to commityourself to experimenting.
So for a period of however long, like maybe a year, you say I'm
going to experiment with XYZ,I'm going to transcribe one solo
a month, whatever, and so youexperiment in different areas
and you kind of pick what feelsnatural and what lights you up.
(07:40):
So that's great, but maybe thatwould be a good book.
I know, Let us know if youwould be interested listeners,
readers if you'd be interestedin doing something like that,
Because I think we all get to apoint where we're like, ah,
we've been doing the same thingfor so long, you gotta just kind
of stuck.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
You gotta just like you gotta brush away all the
cobwebs in a way.
So anyway, how's everythingelse going?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Good, my husband has COVID.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He has COVID house.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That's kind of like all we're in the COVID house
right now, again, again, exceptI'm not the son of it, I'm
practicing, which is nice.
Yeah, everything's going great.
That's really, really.
It's fine.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
How about you?
What's going on with you?
I mean thanks to the jamsession.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, I went to the jam session.
Also, I had my feel on my backbecause I was teaching before I
got there and I would never and.
I walked in and I was like, oh,are you going to sit in?
You're going to sit in.
I was like no, I'm not going tosit in.
The guy at the end who ran thefestival, he's like you had an
instrument with you.
Why didn't you sit in?
I was like because I'm a reader.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Is that the term?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That's the term.
We're readers.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, like breeders, we're readers.
That's the derogatory gesturefor us.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yes, but I will say too, one of the observations
about that was it was just sowarm and inviting and it didn't
matter who had what experienceLike there was a gentleman who
got up there and playedaccordion.
It was adorable it was just fun.
It was just like relaxed andlow key and I am ever striving
for that elusive balance ofspace for myself and yes to
(09:10):
opportunity.
And this fall for a lot ofreasons.
I feel a little bitoverextended and I had to just
take a minute a couple days ago.
I had a therapy sessionyesterday and I was talking to
my therapist about this and itwas actually really great.
It was a moment of like goodjob, Liz.
I felt burnout approaching.
K-asset has started to build.
I now have five weeks in a rowI'm going to spend time out of
(09:32):
town.
That's a lot of back and forthand, particularly as I've come
to understand with the way Ifunction, it's really hard for
me to just like get back intosome sort of okay, here you are,
you got home on Sunday night,Like, do all the stuff you need
to do so that you're set for thenext day.
That's a challenge for me.
So, anyway, but I recognized theapproach toward burnout before
(09:55):
I got there.
I actually felt myself reactingto people, places, things, in a
way that's like this isn'treally how I feel about this
situation, but I'm feelingnegatively about it and I think
it's because I'm tired.
I think I need to check out fora little bit.
So I did.
I gave myself off the grid timeon Tuesday night for a good
good, good long while and I wokeup yesterday morning and I was
(10:18):
like, oh me again.
And then yesterday I could justtackle a bunch of chores and
get stuff done, and so it wassort of one of those like yay
moments of recognizing a thingbefore it hits like critical
mass.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, that's bad yeah .
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Like a good moment of self-awareness in that way.
So that's exciting.
Now I get to see howsuccessfully I could do it for
the next month.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Well, there are just these little wins.
You know, that's right, that'sright.
Changes happen in baby steps.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And I don't intend, I do not mean to complain in any
way, shape or form.
I love what I'm doing.
It's really fun.
For whatever reason, myemployment opportunities have
all been presented out of townso far this year, aside from my
quartet, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I am not okay with that oh.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I do miss our stand partner now.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well what am I saying we are going to be?
Stand partners we're going tobe stand partners.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Two weeks from now, we're going to be sitting in a
rehearsal giggling and carryingon as subtly as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes, it will be fun, that will be fun.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I know, yeah, we'll have to like.
Well, we'll share extra.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
We shouldn't have to go to another city for that.
That's what I'm saying.
Well, we are just absolutelyecstatic that you're here
listening to us, and I wish thiscould be like a more than
two-way conversation.
Wouldn't that be cool to talkto more people?
Yeah, it would be great.
Are our listeners Maybe?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
one of these days we'll figure out how to do call
ins.
Yeah.
Yeah, that would be kind ofthat would be maybe a perk for
Patreon.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
True, so we have a Patreon.
Yeah, if you like this, thenthat would be a good place to
get more of this right.
Patreoncom slashMusicianCentric yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, Awesome.
So this second episode of theseason we were so excited to
host Aubrey Burgauer, who isjust like a powerhouse in
reframing the concept of artsadministration and running
nonprofit arts organizations andshe is releasing a book next
year called Run it Like aBusiness and that's sort of her
(12:19):
platform.
So we spoke with her and had agreat conversation about so many
facets of the orchestralorganization world and some
different, I think, perspectivesand approaches to how we've
been managing that as a wholeover the last several decades.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Right.
So we're clearly at a turningpoint and Aubrey has been doing
a lot of work over in Californiawith some of their symphonies
over there and she is justespousing her really fresh ideas
that are taken directly fromthe business world and why
businesses are successful andwhy can't we in the arts use
(12:56):
those strategies for ourselvesto retain and build audiences.
She's written a whole book onit and Liz and I got to preview
that and we got to talk with herabout that and I think that
comes out in February so you canpreorder that book.
We'll talk about it in ourconversation with Aubrey.
But if you're in artsadministration, we hope that you
connect with some of theseideas.
If you're a freelancer, like us,these are great brand new
(13:19):
opportunities to be involved inthe orchestras that you play in
and to kind of solidify yourwork.
If these organizations arehealthy, then our career is
healthy.
So let us know your thoughts.
Email us, MusicianCentric atgmailcom or you can always DM us
on Instagram or Facebook.
If you love this episode,please, please, please, share it
(13:39):
.
We'll have links on all of oursocial media.
You can share it directly fromyour podcast listening app.
Share it with one friend.
That helps us so much.
Spread the word please.
But anyway, enjoy thisconversation with Aubrey
Bergauer.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It's that time of year we're back to school and we
are back to gigging.
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When's the last time you'vereheared your bow stuff?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, I feel like it was recently, but I bet it's
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Oh, and I need new backupstrings and an instrument
adjustment.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Sounds like it might be about time.
Yeah, I do love to get in therefor a visit to our favorite
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Speaker 2 (14:29):
Maybe I need a new case too.
And, as we've said before, ifyou need a rental instrument,
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My daughter and many of mystudents rent from Potters and
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Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yes, get back to your music this season with
confidence by visiting PotterViolins, so your equipment will
be ready, even if you might needa bit more of a warm-up.
Hailed as the Steve Jobs ofclassical music and the Sheryl
Sandberg of the symphony, aubreyBergauer is known for her
results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of
(15:06):
changing the narrative for theperforming arts.
She's held offstage roles,managing millions in revenue at
major institutions includingSeattle Symphony, seattle Opera
and San Francisco Conservatoryof Music.
Aubrey helps organizations andindividuals transform from
scarcity to opportunity, makemoney and grow the base of fans
and supporters, which issomething we are all looking for
(15:27):
as artists.
Her work and leadership hasbeen covered in the Wall Street
Journal, entrepreneur, thrive,global and Southwest Airlines
magazines, and she is a frequentspeaker spanning TEDx, adobe's,
magento, universities andindustry conferences in the US
and abroad.
Aubrey's first book as if shewasn't busy enough, run it Like
a Business publishes in Februaryof 2024.
(15:48):
We got a sneak peek at that,and we'll talk about that a
little bit in the conversation,but welcome to the
Musician-centric podcast Aubrey.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Oh, thank you, Liz, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Steph for having me.
Yeah, we're excited and we knowyou're super busy, so thanks
for fitting us in.
But yeah, I meancongratulations also on your
book.
I mean, what was that likewriting a book?
Like how long did it take you?
Was it like years?
Was it months?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Well, it was a long time, so here's the joke I make
that, hopefully.
I was like debating in my headcan I make this joke on this
podcast publicly?
But I'm going to do it, whichis to say, I've decided
publishing is the only industrythat moves slower than classical
music, so, please, okay for meto make that joke, like I said,
100% okay.
(16:33):
What I mean by that, though, isthat I mean you could self
publish, and it's not that itcould be very quick, but I
wanted to at least try to getpicked up by a publisher, just
to have the reach and theprofessional editing team and
all the things that do come withthat.
So, given that that worked theagent, the publisher this is
like a whole new world for me.
It's been a long road, and Istarted working on this, at
(16:57):
least in concept, in 2019.
, and then fast forward a coupleyears.
You have to write this wholeproposal, shop it around to
agents, and then, eventually,the agent got it sold to a
publisher, and so then themanuscript itself the writing
was May of 2022 through November.
That was the first draft, andthen it's November of last year,
(17:19):
and then November through aboutMay or June of this year.
It was the editing and back andforth and reworking things, and
then now we've just sent it offto press.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So congratulations.
So, if we back up a little bit,for a lot of our listeners who
are in the musician space, theymay not actually know of your
work necessarily because you are, as you say, offstage doing all
of that behind the scenes work,which is incredibly vital, and
we're excited to dig into thisarts admin world, quote, unquote
(17:52):
.
But can you tell us a littlebit about your background, how
you got into arts admin and howit led to the passion you have
for your vision for the futureof our field.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, I was trained as a player.
I played an instrument seriouslygrowing up, went to music
school, but it was in highschool when I first realized
that there is a job managing theoperation and I decided that
that was the path I wanted.
And so for undergrad, doublemajored in business as well as a
degree in music performance,and so that was important to me
(18:25):
to have the training of aprofessional musician and at
least understand, you know, whatis required to have these
important jobs.
But then also was pursuing whatI think are these other
important jobs, which is theoffstage work, and I'm a firm
believer it takes all of usonstage and off to do what we do
.
We need each other totally alot to say about breaking down
the us versus them tropes, butthe short version is that's been
(18:46):
my whole path.
And then you know you said thebio at the beginning of the
career and the organizationsI've worked for, and I'll just
add to that that it was so earlyon, it was, you know nobody.
So early on I startedidentifying the challenges with
the industry and nobody teachesus in school about this offstage
work required.
Yeah, nodding heads no way, yeah, and so I've been on this path
(19:10):
to really, yes, optimize thebusiness side of what we do.
But also the conclusion I'vecome to is that if we trained
our offstage talent with therigor that we train our onstage
talent, wow, this industry wouldbe so different.
And so that's been more of mywork in recent years is how do I
teach more?
How do I train more?
How do we up level our skillsoffstage so that we can generate
(19:35):
the revenue we need to fund theart we want to produce?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, that's really powerful, because I think of the
arts administrators that I knowwho've come up into that
position, and they start off asplayers, right, or like members
of the orchestra who want tocontribute more, and so they
move their way onto that side ofthings.
The love of the art is there,but the know how of how to put
(19:59):
it out there.
As you know, a functioning andsustainable business is not.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, I think I mean we talk about like systemic
issues.
This is so at the crux of itand there's a lot of systemic
issues, I think, in our industry, but this is a big one where it
just goes back to the days oftraining and because this
offstage work is not addressedand this is starting to change a
little bit.
So sort of caveat to what I'msaying, thank goodness it's
starting to change a little bit.
But because this offstage workby and large is not addressed,
(20:26):
we just all are sort of taughtlike you go and you win the
audition and you play the gigand all this other stuff happens
and the audience turns up andthe donations are given and it's
like magic little fairies justwork back there we learn like oh
yeah, it doesn't really happenthat magic fairy way.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, it's.
It is really fascinating tothink about, and often I think
from the musician perspective,I'll go out there and say that
we have a little bit of a senseof entitlement.
That's like I'm getting hiredto play this job and here's all
these people that are likeworking their butts off to make
sure this happens.
But that's not my job.
My job is just to show up andplay, and I do see that starting
to shift, I think more often,at least in the freelance space,
(21:08):
we have a lot of you know,quote unquote startups, and so
these organizations are actuallylike relatively grassroots and
they're working together withthe musicians to try to build
their product, so to speak.
And to your point, I do thinkthere are things that are
changing about that and thereare more opportunities, I guess,
in training to add an artsadmin component or add some sort
of business component in a waythat was very discouraged for a
(21:30):
long time, as we all know.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Or at least knowledge of these roles.
I'm not saying everybody has tobe proficient in these roles,
but like at least.
I mean there's so many timeslike, yeah, you're nodding your
heads already.
Like you know, musiciansgraduate.
It's incredibly talented whenin audition and then you don't
know anything beyond the lanethey've been told their whole
life to stay in and that's justreally problematic in serving
these broader goals that we allhave.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So yeah, yeah, that's absolutely wild.
Can you give us you know, yourinnovative way of approaching
arts?
Admin, your book title says itall right, run it like a
business.
If you were to give yourelevator pitch to our listeners,
how would you describe yourperspective and what you feel
your mission is in these spaces?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
My brand for many years now has been changing the
narrative and I believe thattrends can be bucked and trends
can be reversed, and that's beena real through line for all of
my work and so the idea of Ireally thrive on change in many
ways.
I know change can be very scary, but I just believe so much
that it's necessary for ourindustry.
So changing the narrative isthe brand I've started to take
(22:29):
more and more of the past.
I don't know year and a halfthat the narrative is changing
slowly, but it is changing.
And even, as you said, there'sso many entrepreneurial
musicians and so many people onstage and off who do not believe
, wow, we do need each othergoing back to breaking down the
us versus them trope and I justreally do see the conversation
shifting, actions shifting inmany cases.
(22:51):
So it changes slow, but it ishappening.
And then the other piece.
This is getting to be a verylong elevator pitch, but the
other piece is it's a longelevator ride we have 12 years.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
We have 12 years.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
We have a long skyscraper.
It's all skyscraper.
The other piece is what yousaid about taking what works in
other industries and, at the endof the day, a lot of our arts
organizations are e-commercebusinesses.
We sell tickets direct toconsumer.
We are content producers.
There's a lot to say about thatDigital content, in-person
content.
We are subscription brands,Like we were kind of the OG
(23:26):
subscription model 50 years agoand that's shifting as
subscriptions and membershipeconomy has shifted.
So a lot to say about that.
But my point is in saying allthis is there are a lot of
things we do not everything, buta lot of things we do that
other industries, specificallyfor-profit businesses, have
really thrived and mastered andI do not think we have to
reinvent the wheel.
I think there's a lot we canlearn from those strategies and
(23:48):
so much of my work yes, aboutthe innovation piece has been
not that original.
It's been adopting thesestrategies that are working
elsewhere, applying that to whatwe do and then, sure enough,
seeing that, yeah, thesestrategies work.
It's not just that we're asecret anomaly somewhere, Like
no, at the end of the day, we'reserving consumers in many ways
and there's just a lot to bedone to optimize that better.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Right.
So as an arts administrator,I'm sure you talked about
bridging the gap between themusicians and the administration
.
So what do you see as an idealsituation where musicians can
involve themselves in theadministrative side and
administrators can kind of reachout to the actual musicians who
are playing the shows?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I think a lot of times it's very simple breaking
down that fourth wall, andsometimes it's just
acknowledging that there is anaudience there, and even that a
lot of times brings up a debateare we here to serve the art or
the audience, and can thesethings coexist?
As my question, I believe yes,and of course we want to serve
the art, but without an audiencewe don't really get to exist as
(24:49):
organizations.
Anyway, so with that sort of ifwe can agree on that as a
common ground, that we serve theart and, yes, we serve an
audience and a community, thenthat starts to, I think, really
change.
Like, how can a musician beinvolved?
Okay, so it's acknowledgingthis audience is very important
to our existence.
And so then it's other littlethings that come from that.
I love involving musicians withdonors.
(25:11):
I know not everybody wants todo that.
I believe in paying musiciansfor their time.
So I'm not trying to say weneed a bunch of free labor
that's not compensated somehow,but I think always just really
opens the door to greater donorconversation, really connecting
them to the work we do, thesethings that we need to do when
we're cultivating and stewardingour donors.
So I could go on and on, but alot of times it really is little
(25:32):
things like that where it'slike it's breaking down the silo
If it's not like the offstagepeople do this work and I do
this work on stage when I showup and instead saying I think
there's a lot more overlap evenin these smaller ways, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So yeah, I wonder too I was just thinking, as this
conversation has been unfoldingthis way about, and I suspect we
would all agree.
It is rooted in the concept ofscarcity, particularly in a
field with we hear aboutdiminishing budgets and
bankruptcies and all sorts ofthings.
Less opportunities formusicians or more musicians out
(26:06):
there and not enoughopportunities.
Keeping up with that, and I'mwondering to kind of reverse it
as opposed to discussing what wecan do differently, what do you
see in the offstage presence?
What do you see as the biggestbarriers that are getting in the
way of making that progress?
Or what did you see in yourexperiences that kind of got you
(26:27):
to shift?
And I know you've mentionedbeing data-driven as well, so I
think statistics probably backup anything that you have.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
I think this point of data let's stay on that for a
bit because we'll work backwardsto the end of your question
what prevents us from kind ofreally honing in on the data?
I think I get asked this a lotand I think the answer this is
just my opinion.
I don't have data to back upthis opinion, but I'm good, I
love opinions.
Okay, and I think it's becauseour art form is so subjective.
(26:53):
Art is in the eye of thebeholder right, and there are
definitely standards ofexcellent playing, of course, in
ways that are morestraightforward, but on the
whole it's subjective, andevaluating art of any discipline
is often subjective.
And so I think because that isfor hundreds of years true of
our art form that then as theart form evolved into a
(27:13):
professionalized, actual branchof management, writing the book,
I went deep into the researchof how did arts administration
as a field come about and theevolution of that.
That's part of it.
And then over maybe the lastlike 40 years I would say, is
when management side of thingsreally did become more
professionalized, like I said,as a subdiscipline of business
management as a whole.
(27:33):
And you start marrying thatwith everything we've already
said about the way our trainingis and how people come into
these administrative roles orlack of training on the offstage
stuff.
You know, all of those thingswe've said put all that together
in subjectivity and I thinkit's kind of a recipe for not
having originated artsadministration that is, not
having originated from businessfundamentals in the way other
(27:55):
subdisciplines of business andmanagement were built.
So, like I said, that's myopinion and there is some
research in that as I shared.
But that's me just trying tosort of amalgamate what I've
learned about the history of ourprofession, and so I think this
is a way the narrative ischanging that in terms of people
in our field wanting to be moredata driven, I felt like I used
to be pretty alone on the datasoap box and we've come so far
(28:18):
in that and now more theconversation is not like refusal
of data I would say sometimesthat happens, but not as much.
It's more like how, how do I dothis, how do I leverage data,
how do I learn about my ownpatron database?
And that's a shift in a goodway.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, I think also, like we have the tendency to
think that we're special and Ithink you alluded to this way
before Like nobody gets us,nobody understands classical
music like we understandclassical music, so you couldn't
possibly teach me anything fromthe business side of things.
So what's been the biggestthing in your experience that
(28:53):
you've taken over from thebusiness world or concept that's
absolutely worked in theclassical music world?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
User experience research.
Okay, so let's unpack that anddefine that User experience
research for anybody listening,if you don't know, it's just
going to your user, meaning yourcustomer, and asking them about
their experience.
And this, for me, changedeverything.
I am not being dramatic when Isay that because, like so many
of us, I just had thesepreconceived notions of what an
(29:21):
audience member does or doesn'tknow about our art form, and
I've learned there's a real biascalled hindsight bias and it's
the phenomenon that when peoplelearn something, they forget
what it's like to not know thatthing.
Okay, so that applies so much towhat we do when we're talking
about marketing, presentation ofour product, concert experience
(29:42):
, all of those things, becausewe just forget what it's like to
not know what we know aboutclassical music.
And so, doing user experienceresearch, we've learned things
like smart grown adults who areintelligent, well educated, but
just don't really go toclassical music and then combine
that with the decline in publicmusic education.
Like, what I've learned is likethe baseline of grown adults is
(30:03):
they don't even always know thenames of the instruments.
Okay, no judgment, like when Ifirst realized that I was.
Like, talk about hindsight bias, I cannot remember not knowing
the names of the instruments.
Yes yeah, right.
So the scales fell off my eyeswhen I started to understand,
like, oh, there is a massivedisconnect between what a new
(30:23):
audience member knows.
Again, smart, educated, grownadults, millennials, gen Xers
the knowledge gap is so broadbetween what they know and what
I know.
And once I realized no judgment, just trying to understand
where this disconnect is, I waslike, oh okay, so then what do
we do with that?
User experience research?
It's really about asking themhow they feel.
So this is important because alot of times organizations are
like oh, I'm gonna go to theaudience and ask them should we
(30:46):
program more or less Beethoven?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't do that.
Instead, user experience isabout how do we feel.
So what do they feel?
They feel intimidated, theyfeel unwelcome, they feel like
they're so curious but likethose means are not getting met
and they want to learn, but theycan't, because if they don't
understand the names of theinstruments, for example, they
don't understand instrumentationwhen that's what's in the
(31:07):
program notes.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Right 222.
That's so true.
Of course, it's so true.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Like why, oh my God, why should they care?
I mean honestly, why shouldthey care Honestly?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, yeah.
But it breaks it down to likewhy do people come?
They come to feel and they cometo be moved, yes, and they
don't come shopping for oneexperience or another, they just
want the whole experience to beone that moves them.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I have this like quick anecdote about this exact
thing.
I was playing a festival thissummer in a rural town in
Pennsylvania I've done it formany years and it's a college
campus where we do this festivaland we were at one of the local
hangs just having some beer andpizza for rehearsal and this 21
year old student from thecollege who's in a frat comes
over and just wants a biasedpitcher of beer because he's
(31:55):
like oh hey, you guys areclearly not from around here,
let's just say hi and hang out,whatever.
And sure enough we start havinga conversation telling them
what we're there for and he'sjust like aghast.
He took a music appreciationclass in college and that's
about like the extent of hisknowledge and we went around and
played that game.
Guess what instrument I play?
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, because it says a lot about your
personality and all that.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So we wanted him to do that.
We were like you need to guesswhat instruments we play.
And he's like I wouldn't evenknow what to say.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
He knew band instruments.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I think we mentioned cello and he was like, don't
know what that is.
And we're like, well, come tothe concert tomorrow, you can
find out.
And it ended up being thislittle mini opportunity I hate
to use the word educate, butjust to give someone a new
window of experience that theyhadn't had before, just by
having the conversation with us.
We'd talk to him about themusic and just shop talk.
(32:48):
He's sitting there like aghastand just totally mesmerized by
this ridiculous shop talk we'redoing.
And sure enough, he came byhimself, dressed himself up.
I had a comp ticket.
He came to the concert.
Sarah Chang played violin.
It was amazing, it wasbeautiful.
Of course he doesn't know whoSarah Chang is, but he was just
like that was so awesome.
But just, he had context, yeah,it's so good.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Right, okay, so I have to respond to some of that
because it's so spot on so youhesitate to do.
Is where it's education?
I don't.
I now say, when I'm workingwith marketing teams, like
marketing is education, that isyour job.
When you just put the programlistening on the website, that
is not enough.
Like they don't know and thatbecame clear in the user
experience research we've donewe look at a program and we're
like, oh, copeland, shostakovichand whoever else, like we know,
(33:32):
okay, some American music, someRussian music, some maybe 20th
century, right, we know, we'reinstantly processing this.
They have no idea, no idea.
And so, as one participant putit, they said I want to know, is
this a romantic comedy or atragedy?
And it's like, oh right, likewe infer so much about these
composers and what that programlooks like just from those names
and again, they don't have thatcontext.
(33:53):
So, education, education,education all the time.
And there's a lot about that oflike storytelling.
It doesn't have to be pedanticeducation, but, yes, all these
things that we learned in school.
If let's talk about Shostakovichresponse to the Russian
government, right, where it'slike, yeah, yeah, we know, we
know, we know, but they don'tknow, so let's talk about it.
Anyways, there's all that.
But then the part you said alsoabout once that person came to
(34:13):
the concert.
Okay, so this is the otherthing we've seen in our user
experience research, and nowI've seen this reproduced
multiple times at manyorganizations.
But when you're actuallytalking about the product itself
not the concert experience, notthe program book, but like the
music on stage they're alwayslike wow, wow, I had no idea,
and I mean I literally heardthem say I didn't know it would
(34:35):
sound that different thanSpotify.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
And it's like again no judgment, but they don't know
any better.
They didn't know.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Yeah.
And so, like I said, when I saythis stuff changed everything
for me, I'm like, okay, themusic itself is not the problem,
the performance.
I mean.
It goes right back to theexceptional training our artists
have.
That's the piece we've workedon as an industry hole for
hundreds of years to deliverexceptionally well.
And we do.
And that emotion, that feelingis awe and that is what we
(35:03):
deliver, and it's like okay,everything else tangential to
that, that's the part of thebusiness.
That's where the opportunitylies.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I love that so much and it's such a subtle shift,
but such an important shift tothink of that gap in knowledge
not as a barrier but as anopportunity.
Right, it's like, oh my gosh,there's this huge potential
audience.
I just need to package it inthe right way and talk to them
where they are and help themlearn about what we do, and
(35:34):
that's where the growth is.
It's not about bringing peopleup to our level so they can
appreciate what we do and saywow, wow, wow.
It's like crossing that littlebarrier, yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, and the wow is going to come.
I mean, that's the thing it'sgoing to come If we get past
unintimidated as an emotion andswitch that to no.
I know I will learn somethingwhen.
I'm there I know I will begiven the tools I need to
understand what's going on and Iwill feel like I belong.
The wow will come.
That's the part we've got onlock everybody.
The wow will come.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Is it fair to ask and I ask this as a musician, I
granted a very business-drivensort of musician, but I think
it's a good question to throwout there Is it fair that of our
musicians, of our artists, thatthere's maybe more that's
required of them now, as opposedto just that?
To your point.
You mentioned this.
You said we deliver aShostakovich symphony.
(36:24):
Well, yeah, generations of ushave been getting better and
better and better and better atplaying Shostakovich symphonies
together, and so at some point,is there more that's required of
us as the artist, to engagewith those supporters, those
users, those audience members,and how can we sell the benefit
of that being part of theresponsibility of a professional
(36:44):
musician?
Is that extra piece of it thefirst thing?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
that was coming to my mind as you were saying, that
is, there is more required ofall of us.
There is also a lot morerequired of administrators too.
So it's right back to thehistory we were talking about 40
years ago.
They didn't have to beproficient and user experience
research it's just harder forall of us.
This goes right back to.
We are all on the same teamdoing this together.
The disservice is that it's nottold to anybody.
The end getting going rightback to the systemic issues, and
(37:09):
so it just feels like the morethat's expected is the awareness
and knowledge of all of this.
I find not always, becausethere are some musicians who are
recalcitrant, but by and largeI think that's less and less the
case.
I see, and more and more, whatI see are musicians who say I
get it, I want our art to have afuture, therefore we need
(37:31):
supporters, and so that reallystarts to unlock like, well,
what do we do to get there?
And so to me, a lot of timeswhen the awareness happens and
we have these conversations, andeven back at the California
Symphony when I was running theorganization, watching us go
from half empty halls to soldout performances, and it's like.
Even that's just a reallearning for all of us together.
(37:52):
Of course, the ensemble wouldrather play to a full house than
a half empty house.
This is a no brainer and just,but even just seeing, like the
energy change and, of course, inthe hall, but then on stage,
the energy change and like,absolutely it's hard to have a
conversation about that.
These are, like you know, veryintangible moments, but it's
like when that's when it startscoming together and it's like,
okay, I do get it, we do needeach other.
(38:12):
Yes, and maybe it isn't justarts for art's sake, because,
wow, I feel more fulfilled whenthis house is erupting and
applause when I'm done.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's the community, it's the connection
with the audience, which issomething that Liz and I have
talked about tons of times here.
You know that's what we do artfor right.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
But we forget.
It's much easier if you're inan intimate setting.
You know I think about thisoften that in chamber music it
doesn't necessarily translate.
Because you have that immediateresponsibility, there's less of
you.
You are acutely aware of theenergy of the audience.
They're usually physicallycloser to your space.
But for a very long time I saton that stage as an orchestra
member and I felt uncomfortableabout the disconnect and I was
(38:54):
convinced that all we were doingit for was ourselves, that we
were like I'm having thisexperience, like there's just
people sitting out there, butthey're just people sitting out
there, right.
And that is the important shift,I think, for musician mindset
and you've said this sobrilliantly, aubrey, I don't
think we'd heard this before,but Stephanie and I were just
talking about this last week tothe same effect that we have
(39:17):
that hindsight bias and once wewere aware of something, it's
hard to remember what it waslike to not be aware of it.
But we have a lot of colleagueswho probably still feel that
disconnect for whatever reason.
You know, there's so manyreasons that you can feel that
disconnect and just theinspiration to be more engaged
in the organizations you play in, even as a sub, and I think
(39:38):
that's an important thing to saytoo that the musician is valued
no matter what, because theirpresence on stage creates the
thing that's being shared withthat audience, but the audience
is experiencing that person too.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I think what you said about chamber music is so true
too, like you have to show up inthat way for chamber music and
then with the orchestra, youknow, when you're one of 80 or
however many people are on stage, then it is easier to be
anonymized, and I think itencourages in a weird way this
disconnect, or allows for it,like the setting allows for it
more, maybe not encourages.
And I will say also to yourpoint of like, even when you
(40:10):
show up as a sub, not to toot myown horn music music pun, I
forget if this was like a yearor two ago sometime.
Well, after I had left theCalifornia Symphony, a
substitute musician emailed meand said I forget why they had
reached out, but they were likeI just wanted to tell you I had
played as a sub several timesand I was like, oh yeah, I
(40:31):
recognize that name and it's ofcourse Bay Area, the freeway
fill harmonics.
The freelancers are so much ofthe orchestral just Bay Area
scene here.
And they were like, havingplayed with everybody is
different.
When I showed up there in agood way and I was, I didn't
expect it but in so many wayslike the greatest compliment
because I was like, oh my God,like I talk about audience,
(40:51):
audience, audience all day long.
And here was a musician whosaid, when I showed up, I felt
like I belonged, yeah, and I waslike, oh my God, everything
makes sense, like if we createplaces of inclusivity and
belonging and we're here workingin the same direction.
I don't know, I get really, youknow, poetic about it, but like
you can be a freelancer andabsolutely be contributing in a
meaningful way to everythingwe're talking about.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Absolutely.
Yeah, we've all had thoseexperiences being freelancers
and it's a lovely cycle that ifyou can build that inclusivity,
then it impacts the musicians onstage, which then impacts the
audience.
They can feel the vibe.
It's, you know, only positives.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, and there are organizations where, even as a
sub, you feel like you're a partof what's happening, and
there's the opposite is true aswell.
But I know, I really noticedthat.
I noticed that energy, if notimmediately, then pretty quickly
.
But it's often when you have anorganization that's trying to
innovate the way that they'redoing business.
You know, just like lookingahead, I mean being more engaged
(41:49):
, so all-encompassing, right,but it's that's really what it
comes down to from every aspect.
You know, having thatengagement.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, so, aubrey, you have this book that's coming
out in February.
Could you give us a couplehighlights?
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I mean, we got a sneak peek we should share.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
We were able to read a little bit about vertical
integration of artsorganizations and how we can
incorporate these things likeeducation, how we can
incorporate those into the modelso that arts organizations can
be run more like businesses.
So can you talk a little bitabout vertical integration and
what that means in the art space?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, hearing you bring this up, I'm like right,
this brings together so manythings.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
We've already talked about this.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
This is great.
This is great.
Vertical integration this isanother one of these like
vocabulary words that isdefinitely not a classical music
word, a business word, sure,but not even used that often.
So to define it it is when anorganization brings under one
roof, sort of brings in house,components of the business or
industry that would otherwise beoperated under separate
(42:54):
businesses, institutions.
Okay, so what does that looklike for us Education?
So we've talked all abouttraining and what's the typical
model?
You go to school to learn toplay an instrument, and that is
one institution.
And then you join an orchestraor freelance, and that's a
separate institution.
But what happens for the peoplewho don't want to play
(43:14):
professionally but want tocontinue to play their
instrument?
Not a lot of opportunity forthat kind of person.
And I mean there are communityorchestras.
I would say that's the outletthat I can think of that exists
for that type of person.
Okay, so vertical integrationand this is just one example
would be to say we offer that asa revenue stream.
(43:34):
Grown adults who have money tospend and want to continue this
hobby pursuit at a high level tothem.
How do they get a great teacher?
Could we bring that under ourroof as a revenue stream.
The artist gets paid, theorganization takes a cut for the
administrative aspects of it.
There are severalentrepreneurial musicians and I
talk in the book and you readthis of you know, at major
orchestras LA Phil, MetropolitanOpera who are doing this on
(43:57):
their own.
And that's fine Entrepreneurialmusicians all the way.
They've got this great.
But I'm interested to exploreare there musicians who say,
yeah, I see this, I see theopportunity there, I want extra
money in my pocket.
Could we broker this where theorganization does all this
administrative lift for me?
Okay, so that's one, just oneexample of vertical integration.
If anybody's hearing this andthey're like absolutely not
(44:19):
Aubrey that's okay, noteverybody has to agree with this
.
But that's just one example.
Let me give a business exampleand then I'll come back to
another musical example.
But businesses, amazon is likethe king, king of vertical
integration.
So Amazon, oh gosh.
Originally they had outsideshipping and distribution right.
It used to be through UPS orwhoever they use.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Back in that way, back when in the dark ages.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
I remember that and house over warehousing, shipping
, distribution, right.
Okay, we call that Amazon Prime.
Same thing with web hosting.
They used to host their websiteI don't know somewhere else,
and then they developed theirown internal capability to host
websites and then they said, oh,we could market this to others.
That became Amazon web services, and AWS is now, I think, the
(45:06):
largest hosting platform of theentire internet of if they're
not number one, then they'renumber two, they're big.
Okay.
Then they started manufacturingtheir own products.
They call that Amazon basics,right.
So I could go on and on.
But that's what Amazon does.
Like I said, they are the kingof.
It used to be separateinstitutions, separate
operational entities.
They bring all this stuff inhouse.
So that's what I'm trying tosay.
Or like how do we start to peelback?
(45:27):
Like what are the things thatwe take for granted as needing
to be separate?
That, if we bring it in, isthere a way that for an
organization, it does bring inadditional revenue streams?
Okay, so then I said we comeback to music.
So another one is we talkedabout the lack of training for
our offstage talent.
Yes, I wanted to ask you aboutthat we do have a growing number
(45:49):
of masters of artsadministration programs and
things like that.
So that's great.
Those programs exist and thatis fine and that is serving our
industry better than 20, 30years ago, when these programs
didn't exist.
Great.
Is it fixing everything?
Is it serving everybody whowants an offstage role?
Definitely not.
So I think there's opportunityfor organizations to offer
administrative training andcharge for it.
(46:09):
Could that be a great way tothen who we hire?
I think there's just a lot there, because what I do see also,
even as I worked over the yearswith different interns that come
from these masters of artsadministration programs, I mean,
this is true across so manyindustries, but what they
learned in the classroom isdifferent than them putting it
into practice.
And even among really smart,motivated, driven students and
young professionals, I see thegap of like they can think about
(46:32):
data, maybe, but they do notknow how to pull the report from
the database.
Okay, that's a tacticaltraining element that we need to
fix, because you're not of muchhelp to me If you can't
actually extract the data you'retalking about theoretical, so
right there's just bless ourhearts by the way.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Can we?
Speaker 3 (46:49):
build in programs like that.
And then there areorganizations already doing this
.
So anybody who's like, wow, sheis off her rocker.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Organizations are doing it.
Beth Morrison projects is agreat example.
They have their producersAcademy.
They're known for bringing newwork to the stage.
So how do you do it?
How do you go from A to B,commissioning a new work to
(47:09):
bringing it to the stage, togetting it funded, to working
out all the financials of whogets paid and who does what and
did it?
You know like they teach that.
Okay, great.
They have since developedsmaller programs to like kind of
like the sprints or I don'tknow what they call it, but like
here's the finance three daycourse.
Then over time, they got thatfunded by I think it was Melon
Foundation, but one of the bigfoundations gave them this like
(47:30):
multi million, multi year grantor something like that.
Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit,but it was a lot of money, is
the point and really allowedthem to more institutionalize
this.
So now they're getting fundingfrom a grantor, funding in terms
of revenue stream from theparticipants.
They've now made it a gateway Italked about gateway to hiring,
a gateway to a paid fellowship,internship, and the people who
(47:52):
participate are getting paid forthat fellowship.
This is not unpaid labor.
I believe in paying musiciansfor their labor.
I believe in paying offstagetalent for their labor, even at
an internship role.
So all this is to say like it'sjust become for them this
really significant part of theirinstitution and how they do
business.
Are there ways we can make somemoney and bring this in house
Like I am all for those things.
How do we make more money?
Speaker 1 (48:14):
I mean the idea of offering some sort of
professional training in houseand having multiple
organizations participate insomething like that.
Then the possibilities thereare so endless.
I want to ask you a questionthat's kind of leading into this
.
Okay, so I am a huge fan of theconcept of social
(48:35):
entrepreneurship and I thinkthat there's a big place for
entrepreneurship within the arts, and a while back I remember
saving it because I was like,yes, she's starting to talk
about it.
You had a rumination onlineabout LLC versus nonprofit or
running as a for-profit versus anonprofit.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
And.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
I'm wondering if, in the work that you're doing right
now with the book and you'retalking about this vertical
integration concept, there arethese new, I think services and
or products that are beingimagined to be offered and
developed.
Is there a path, or do you feellike you're further along the
path, of conceptualizing a wayfor arts organizations to become
(49:12):
for-profit organizations?
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I get asked this more and more.
This is sort of stream ofconsciousness.
I'll just tell you thedifferent ways I've thought
about this.
The end is I don't know that wecan be for-profit.
I think people are sometimessurprised to hear me say that,
especially because I'm all likebusiness and I want more money
and all of this.
But I don't know, because thebiggest expense we have is our
people.
This is true for mostorganizations, most companies.
(49:36):
Like.
Your labor expense, no matter ifyou're making widgets or
producing orchestra concerts isyour people, musicians and
administrative staff.
We do not bring in enoughearned revenue to cover those
costs.
We just don't.
That's one of the big reasonswe're non-profits in the first
place.
We have to fundraise to fill inthat gap.
So if we were to becomefor-profit, it's not going to
come from earned revenue, it'sjust not.
(49:58):
I don't think I know there'sgoing to be somebody out there
who's like yuck, you stream itand you stream it to a million
people and they all pay.
Yeah, if we stream it to amillion people and they start
paying, great, show me how thatwould make that happen, because
even Berlin Phil is not makingthat happen.
That kind of sale, again, noshade, but they're a big global
brand doing this already, but Ijust don't see the path in
earned revenue to pay for whatwe do.
So then it begs the questionokay, then what are these other
(50:21):
revenue streams?
And then that's where you weresaying, liz, I think of like,
okay, if you're talking aboutvertical integration, could we
do this?
Maybe, maybe.
I don't know if we really wereable to build these things out,
and maybe that's the answer.
If we really were able to makethat, it would have to be a
massive.
I mean, we're now talking over50% of our revenue as an
institution would have to comefrom that work which then starts
(50:42):
to get into.
It's just so fundamentallydifferent in terms of the
products we're offering.
Could we do it?
Maybe?
That would not be a fast shift,that would take years to build.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, especially for the largest of the organizations
.
I mean operating budgets of aPhiladelphia orchestra, for
example.
Like is wild.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
wild to envision, yeah, and as you're building out
those programs.
You need more people to runthose programs, so it's in your
adding labor expense.
So I don't know, maybe, butyeah, I do get really interested
in what are the alternaterevenue streams.
Could we not be so dependent ongiving?
Or could we keep giving becauseit like keep the donation
component and stay nonprofit?
Nonprofit doesn't mean youdon't make money, nonprofit is
(51:18):
just the tax status.
We could still turn a profitand invest that back into the
endowment or other initiativeswe want or raises for everybody
here here.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
you know like so yeah , it's so fascinating to think
about and, yeah, the possiblesolutions are far down the road.
I have this thing about theconcept of needing to be for
lack of a better word and maybethere's a way to reframe this,
so I'm throwing it out thereneeding someone's charity in
order to do what we do that Ialways have had trouble with.
(51:46):
I've always felt like man, Ihave so much more ownership over
the thing I do and I'd ratherit be like wow, I value this
thing that you offer so muchthat I will pay you to do it at
this level.
You know, I'll pay you thismuch.
This patron says, instead of itbeing this charitable donation.
Like you're worth this much,you know, like it's, it's that's
(52:06):
that's the part that I'm likehow can that be reframed?
But it's, it's a long way away,yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
I think you're absolutely right.
There's a lot of systemic,entrenched issues with
philanthropy as a whole, notjust in the arts, but this idea
that we are so beholden todonors and big donors call the
shots and are we worthy, andthere's just so much like goes
back to like colonialism andsome of these like things that
as a nation we're really kind ofexploring and unpacking
(52:34):
together, and so I really hatethat kind of philanthropy.
I hate going to ask for donorswhere it's this weird power
dynamic and like you have to beall mousy about it, but instead,
when there's values alignment,which you mentioned, that
changes things, then you'retalking to more like would you
be an investor in what we'redoing.
Or but in our peers expectreturns, but the return is not
(52:55):
financial in this case.
It's emotional impact in thecommunity or you know some other
currency.
But for me and maybe this ishow it would be reframe I don't
think that the donation piecelike in and of itself is what's
broken.
It's what's like theundercurrent behind that.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
There's a lot tied up in musicians having patrons and
feeling unworthy, feeling likewe can't do it on our own.
And so that's the big piece.
I think in the discomfort withnonprofits, like no one's going
to pay us outright for theseservices, so we need donors to
legitimize what we're doing withour lives and for a living
(53:32):
Maybe that's just a deep thing.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
That's so true for hundreds of years, right, yes,
right Back to the beginning,yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Yeah, starving artists.
Yeah.
So, aubrey, your book is comingout in February.
Where can people learn moreabout it?
Where can they contact you?
Where can they preorder yourbook?
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Thank, you for asking that AubreyBurghourcom slash
book.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
That's where you need to go.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
Perfect, you can preorder.
This fall we're going to rollout some preorder incentives.
How do you get a signed copy ifanybody wants that kind of
stuff?
So it's all coming, butAubreyBurghourcom slash book and
it's there right now so anybodycan go learn more.
Check it out and, yes, preorderplease.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
If this conversation has been of interest to you,
then you will love the book ifyou like what we're talking
about here, and if it's notnecessary to say, maybe it's
worth saying anyway that forthose of us in the musician side
of things we started by talkingabout it us versus them, old
school mentality that I thinkthere's a lot of work being done
to sort of erode that and kindof bridge the gap between
(54:31):
offstage and onstage.
So, as musicians, I thinkthere's something very inspiring
about having an ownership overthe organizations in which you
work and understanding how theycan grow and how they can evolve
, because that's where our workcomes from.
And so, instead of that feelingof like throwing your hands up
and saying, well, they don'thave enough money to pay us, you
(54:52):
know, like that's a bummer, Iguess I'm going to have to find
some other job.
Instead of that, it's more of aproactive approach of saying,
okay, how can we be a part ofthis too?
And I think the more that thatgap is bridged, I think the
better for everybody.
Right?
Agree, 100%.
What about anything else you'reup to?
Do you do coach?
What do you do like besideswriting books these days?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yeah, there are a couple of ways for people who
want more to get more.
I launched earlier this year aonline community, so that's also
on my website, aribergarracomslash community and what I love
about it is we have members whoare administrators and artists
and we're talking about comingtogether.
We're talking about bridgingthe gap, and I created the space
(55:35):
for I say arts professionals,and that means everybody, all of
us and we do professionaldevelopment events, we do
networking events, we do openoffice hours with me and, like I
said, it started earlier thisyear.
So that's a good option forpeople who want a space where we
can have more of theseconversations, want to meet more
like minded, forward thinkingpeople on stage, offstage, all
(55:58):
of that.
So everybody is welcome, veryawesome.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Thank you so much for joining us today.
This has been lovely.
I feel motivated lit up.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Inspired do some, I don't know.
Arts advocacy.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Well, thank you both for doing what you do.
It's, it's.
It's been a pleasure,Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Thank you so much for listening today.
If you loved this episode,consider writing us a five star
review on Apple podcasts, amazonmusic, spotify or wherever you
listen.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Thanks also to our season sponsor, Potter Violence.
Speaker 1 (56:30):
If you'd like to support the podcast and get
access to bonus content,consider joining our Patreon
community.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
You can buy all your Musician centric merch,
including shirts, water bottles,koozies and a variety of other
fun items.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Our theme music was written and produced by JP
Wogerman and is performed byStefan myself.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Our episodes are produced by Liz O'Hara and
edited by Emily McMahon.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Thanks again for listening.
Let's talk soon.
Before we were recording, you were sharing with
me that this recitalopportunity has come up like a
full-on recital shared with apianist.
You'd play two sonatas andmaybe a solo piece that's
unaccompanied and the timeline.
And this person has gone aheadand looked into a venue and it's
like this opportunity is beingpresented before you and it
feels.
You described how it felt.
(00:20):
How did it feel?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It feels scary but also exciting, which I was
saying is probably just theright thing for what I need to
be doing yes, yes, so they'llpush you out of your comfort
zone a little bit, yeah.
There's something aboutreconnecting to yourself as a
musician, that you make thechoices.
You're owning it.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
You'll own every aspect of that.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Right, like all the creative decisions, all the
musical decisions will be mineor work together with whatever
Collaboratively with one otherperson.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
It's really.
I mean, it's exciting to thinkabout, and we were like start to
talking heavily about this andthen stuff's like should we
record?
Like probably so we're.
I'm trying to recap what goldwas coming up, but I think one
of the things that you alsomentioned was this idea that
trusting, when the concrete workoffer isn't sitting in front of
(01:08):
your face and you don't havethat guarantee of it's going to
support your income or yourcareer in some monetary way, it
somehow causes a reaction oflike this isn't as valuable, but
it really is.
It's.
Space has been created for youto go for this opportunity and
it could turn into an abundanceof who knows what on the other
(01:28):
side of it, like just in termsof following the direction of
the opportunities that arepresented that are scary and
also exciting.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
For sure, different direction for the year.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Maybe, maybe.
Welcome to the Musician Centricpodcast.
We are two freelance violistsliving and laughing our way
through conversations thatexplore what it means to be a
professional musician in today'sworld.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I'm Steph and I'm Liz and we're so glad you've joined
us.
Let's dive in.
I was just talking withsomebody.
He is a jazz musician and we'veknown each other for a very
long time.
We were at a jam session lastnight and he was sitting there
and he's like man, thisenvironment.
I feel so at home right now.
(02:13):
I feel so comfortable and justlike I came up in this
environment, just go into allthese sessions and just sitting
in and playing and like beinguncomfortable.
And I said, this environment islike literally the opposite of
feeling at home or at ease forme.
I, when I think about what didI say last night?
He laughed really hard.
I was like when I'm in thisenvironment, I just feel a well
(02:37):
of regret for how many chances Ididn't take.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Wow, oh, that's interesting, I know, I know, I
mean, what is it about a jam?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
session.
It's particularly dramatic tosay that, because that's not
really true.
I mean, I love my life, don'tget me wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, there's, there's some kernel of truth in
there.
Yes, so there's something aboutit.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So here we are.
We're talking about takingchances with our creative lives.
That world is for sure thecreative chance I didn't take
when I was younger and couldhave.
I was the jazz yes, ok.
So by the time I graduatedundergrad I was mostly spending
time in the jazz world, asidefrom gigs I was getting paid to
(03:20):
do and you know my schoolrequirements and recitals and
stuff but I was taking jazztheory classes.
I was playing on all my friendsrecitals.
I had a really good friend,brilliant pianist, named Yuiichi
Uzeki, who's now back in Japan,but he wrote all kinds of
original tunes and he actuallywrote tunes for me to play solo
on people's recitals and stuff.
(03:40):
And so right at the end of mytime there and into the summer
before I moved, I was startingto learn how to improvise with
him.
We would just go in together,he'd play, and then he'd be like
just go, just do stuff.
I'd be like I don't know whatI'm doing, this is terrible, I
don't know what to do.
Give me a piece of paper withnotes on it, please.
And then I moved away, as we'vetalked about before, and it
(04:03):
just became a thing that I usedto do.
You know that I used to dabblein.
It just became this thing and Iput it away and I went to grad
school down here and I startedplaying in the symphonic world
and I'm happy to reconnect withchamber music in a real serious
way.
But I've not ventured into thatworld but I feel myself being
called to it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm not necessarily jazz.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, it's the hot cash $100.
$100 a night in jazz I can make.
But yeah, that's exactly whatyou were talking about.
It's an intangible.
I feel like I'm on the verge,and I've felt this way for a
while.
I told my friend this lastthing I feel like I'm on the
verge of being ready toexperiment.
I bought all the equipment lastyear.
(04:45):
I'm trying to walk the talk,but I also had so many mental
and emotional inhibitors to mycreativity over the last several
months that I feel like I'm onthe precipice of a point where I
can say, okay, now go do thisthing, you're ready, you set
yourself up, just start messingaround and see what happens.
(05:06):
So, actually, and then I gotgreat advice, which was to
contact all my buddies fromschool and ask them to suggest a
solo that I should transcribeone a month and I should just do
that.
I should just ask them foradvice and they'll give me solos
and I'll make a list, and thenI transcribe one a month and I
just do that.
(05:27):
And he's like, by the end ofthe year you'll have so much
material for solos.
He's like you'll be infinitelyin a better place than you are
right now.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Like you'll know so much more that is.
So that's such a good step forsomebody who is not comfortable
making up their own stuff.
You know, what I always findintimidating about jazz is all
of the theory, all of the chordchanges and knowing what happens
and what scale and all thatstuff.
But that doesn't have to be thefirst step.
It could be something that weunderstand.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
We have the skills to do that.
It's not easy, but we have theskills to do it.
He also did give me the caveat,though he's like you've also
got to learn your scales.
We don't play the same scales.
I was like no, no, you play allthe scales, we just play two of
them, is what you're saying?
We only know two of them.
So I could do that.
(06:17):
That part doesn't scare mebecause we've been practicing
scales our whole lives.
The part that scares me is likeputting the headphones on and
then trying to catch everythingthat fricking John Coltrane does
on a solo.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, maybe you don't start there.
That's what I said.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I was like okay, you get to give me my first solo,
but please go easy on me.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, make it like 101 levels.
What a great idea.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's inspiring.
It gave me this feeling of likeI could do that.
I could spend time once a monthdoing that.
It's not that crazy.
I don't know.
Maybe I'll find ways to holdmyself accountable online or
something like that.
We'll see, We'll see.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, you know, I'll bring this up now because we're
both reading the same book rightnow, called Creative Success,
now by Astrid Baumgartner, and Iwonder if we should do it for
our Joy Loves company, becausethere's an accompanying workbook
, right?
What brings it to mind is thatshe's like one of the steps is
like figure out what yourpurpose is according to your
(07:17):
values, etc.
Etc.
But if you don't feel like youhave the purpose, one of the
alternatives is to commityourself to experimenting.
So for a period of however long, like maybe a year, you say I'm
going to experiment with XYZ,I'm going to transcribe one solo
a month, whatever, and so youexperiment in different areas
and you kind of pick what feelsnatural and what lights you up.
(07:40):
So that's great, but maybe thatwould be a good book.
I know, Let us know if youwould be interested listeners,
readers if you'd be interestedin doing something like that,
Because I think we all get to apoint where we're like, ah,
we've been doing the same thingfor so long, you gotta just kind
of stuck.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
You gotta just like you gotta brush away all the
cobwebs in a way.
So anyway, how's everythingelse going?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Good, my husband has COVID.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He has COVID house.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That's kind of like all we're in the COVID house
right now, again, again, exceptI'm not the son of it, I'm
practicing, which is nice.
Yeah, everything's going great.
That's really, really.
It's fine.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
How about you?
What's going on with you?
I mean thanks to the jamsession.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, I went to the jam session.
Also, I had my feel on my backbecause I was teaching before I
got there and I would never and.
I walked in and I was like, oh,are you going to sit in?
You're going to sit in.
I was like no, I'm not going tosit in.
The guy at the end who ran thefestival, he's like you had an
instrument with you.
Why didn't you sit in?
I was like because I'm a reader.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Is that the term?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That's the term.
We're readers.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, like breeders, we're readers.
That's the derogatory gesturefor us.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yes, but I will say too, one of the observations
about that was it was just sowarm and inviting and it didn't
matter who had what experienceLike there was a gentleman who
got up there and playedaccordion.
It was adorable it was just fun.
It was just like relaxed andlow key and I am ever striving
for that elusive balance ofspace for myself and yes to
(09:10):
opportunity.
And this fall for a lot ofreasons.
I feel a little bitoverextended and I had to just
take a minute a couple days ago.
I had a therapy sessionyesterday and I was talking to
my therapist about this and itwas actually really great.
It was a moment of like goodjob, Liz.
I felt burnout approaching.
K-asset has started to build.
I now have five weeks in a rowI'm going to spend time out of
(09:32):
town.
That's a lot of back and forthand, particularly as I've come
to understand with the way Ifunction, it's really hard for
me to just like get back intosome sort of okay, here you are,
you got home on Sunday night,Like, do all the stuff you need
to do so that you're set for thenext day.
That's a challenge for me.
So, anyway, but I recognized theapproach toward burnout before
(09:55):
I got there.
I actually felt myself reactingto people, places, things, in a
way that's like this isn'treally how I feel about this
situation, but I'm feelingnegatively about it and I think
it's because I'm tired.
I think I need to check out fora little bit.
So I did.
I gave myself off the grid timeon Tuesday night for a good
good, good long while and I wokeup yesterday morning and I was
(10:18):
like, oh me again.
And then yesterday I could justtackle a bunch of chores and
get stuff done, and so it wassort of one of those like yay
moments of recognizing a thingbefore it hits like critical
mass.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, that's bad yeah .
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Like a good moment of self-awareness in that way.
So that's exciting.
Now I get to see howsuccessfully I could do it for
the next month.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Well, there are just these little wins.
You know, that's right, that'sright.
Changes happen in baby steps.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And I don't intend, I do not mean to complain in any
way, shape or form.
I love what I'm doing.
It's really fun.
For whatever reason, myemployment opportunities have
all been presented out of townso far this year, aside from my
quartet, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I am not okay with that oh.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I do miss our stand partner now.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well what am I saying we are going to be?
Stand partners we're going tobe stand partners.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Two weeks from now, we're going to be sitting in a
rehearsal giggling and carryingon as subtly as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes, it will be fun, that will be fun.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I know, yeah, we'll have to like.
Well, we'll share extra.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
We shouldn't have to go to another city for that.
That's what I'm saying.
Well, we are just absolutelyecstatic that you're here
listening to us, and I wish thiscould be like a more than
two-way conversation.
Wouldn't that be cool to talkto more people?
Yeah, it would be great.
Are our listeners Maybe?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
one of these days we'll figure out how to do call
ins.
Yeah.
Yeah, that would be kind ofthat would be maybe a perk for
Patreon.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
True, so we have a Patreon.
Yeah, if you like this, thenthat would be a good place to
get more of this right.
Patreoncom slashMusicianCentric yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, Awesome.
So this second episode of theseason we were so excited to
host Aubrey Burgauer, who isjust like a powerhouse in
reframing the concept of artsadministration and running
nonprofit arts organizations andshe is releasing a book next
year called Run it Like aBusiness and that's sort of her
(12:19):
platform.
So we spoke with her and had agreat conversation about so many
facets of the orchestralorganization world and some
different, I think, perspectivesand approaches to how we've
been managing that as a wholeover the last several decades.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Right.
So we're clearly at a turningpoint and Aubrey has been doing
a lot of work over in Californiawith some of their symphonies
over there and she is justespousing her really fresh ideas
that are taken directly fromthe business world and why
businesses are successful andwhy can't we in the arts use
(12:56):
those strategies for ourselvesto retain and build audiences.
She's written a whole book onit and Liz and I got to preview
that and we got to talk with herabout that and I think that
comes out in February so you canpreorder that book.
We'll talk about it in ourconversation with Aubrey.
But if you're in artsadministration, we hope that you
connect with some of theseideas.
If you're a freelancer, like us,these are great brand new
(13:19):
opportunities to be involved inthe orchestras that you play in
and to kind of solidify yourwork.
If these organizations arehealthy, then our career is
healthy.
So let us know your thoughts.
Email us, MusicianCentric atgmailcom or you can always DM us
on Instagram or Facebook.
If you love this episode,please, please, please, share it
(13:39):
.
We'll have links on all of oursocial media.
You can share it directly fromyour podcast listening app.
Share it with one friend.
That helps us so much.
Spread the word please.
But anyway, enjoy thisconversation with Aubrey
Bergauer.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It's that time of year we're back to school and we
are back to gigging.
Even if you're not mentallyready for the season, you can
count on our season sponsor,Potter Violins, to get your
equipment ready.
When's the last time you'vereheared your bow stuff?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, I feel like it was recently, but I bet it's
been over six months, so I gotto get over there and get it
freshened up.
Oh, and I need new backupstrings and an instrument
adjustment.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Sounds like it might be about time.
Yeah, I do love to get in therefor a visit to our favorite
technicians as we approach thechange of season.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Maybe I need a new case too.
And, as we've said before, ifyou need a rental instrument,
they're the place to go.
My daughter and many of mystudents rent from Potters and
the instruments are reallyfantastic, even the smaller
violas.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yes, get back to your music this season with
confidence by visiting PotterViolins, so your equipment will
be ready, even if you might needa bit more of a warm-up.
Hailed as the Steve Jobs ofclassical music and the Sheryl
Sandberg of the symphony, aubreyBergauer is known for her
results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of
(15:06):
changing the narrative for theperforming arts.
She's held offstage roles,managing millions in revenue at
major institutions includingSeattle Symphony, seattle Opera
and San Francisco Conservatoryof Music.
Aubrey helps organizations andindividuals transform from
scarcity to opportunity, makemoney and grow the base of fans
and supporters, which issomething we are all looking for
(15:27):
as artists.
Her work and leadership hasbeen covered in the Wall Street
Journal, entrepreneur, thrive,global and Southwest Airlines
magazines, and she is a frequentspeaker spanning TEDx, adobe's,
magento, universities andindustry conferences in the US
and abroad.
Aubrey's first book as if shewasn't busy enough, run it Like
a Business publishes in Februaryof 2024.
(15:48):
We got a sneak peek at that,and we'll talk about that a
little bit in the conversation,but welcome to the
Musician-centric podcast Aubrey.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Oh, thank you, Liz, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Steph for having me.
Yeah, we're excited and we knowyou're super busy, so thanks
for fitting us in.
But yeah, I meancongratulations also on your
book.
I mean, what was that likewriting a book?
Like how long did it take you?
Was it like years?
Was it months?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Well, it was a long time, so here's the joke I make
that, hopefully.
I was like debating in my headcan I make this joke on this
podcast publicly?
But I'm going to do it, whichis to say, I've decided
publishing is the only industrythat moves slower than classical
music, so, please, okay for meto make that joke, like I said,
100% okay.
(16:33):
What I mean by that, though, isthat I mean you could self
publish, and it's not that itcould be very quick, but I
wanted to at least try to getpicked up by a publisher, just
to have the reach and theprofessional editing team and
all the things that do come withthat.
So, given that that worked theagent, the publisher this is
like a whole new world for me.
It's been a long road, and Istarted working on this, at
(16:57):
least in concept, in 2019.
, and then fast forward a coupleyears.
You have to write this wholeproposal, shop it around to
agents, and then, eventually,the agent got it sold to a
publisher, and so then themanuscript itself the writing
was May of 2022 through November.
That was the first draft, andthen it's November of last year,
(17:19):
and then November through aboutMay or June of this year.
It was the editing and back andforth and reworking things, and
then now we've just sent it offto press.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So congratulations.
So, if we back up a little bit,for a lot of our listeners who
are in the musician space, theymay not actually know of your
work necessarily because you are, as you say, offstage doing all
of that behind the scenes work,which is incredibly vital, and
we're excited to dig into thisarts admin world, quote, unquote
(17:52):
.
But can you tell us a littlebit about your background, how
you got into arts admin and howit led to the passion you have
for your vision for the futureof our field.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, I was trained as a player.
I played an instrument seriouslygrowing up, went to music
school, but it was in highschool when I first realized
that there is a job managing theoperation and I decided that
that was the path I wanted.
And so for undergrad, doublemajored in business as well as a
degree in music performance,and so that was important to me
(18:25):
to have the training of aprofessional musician and at
least understand, you know, whatis required to have these
important jobs.
But then also was pursuing whatI think are these other
important jobs, which is theoffstage work, and I'm a firm
believer it takes all of usonstage and off to do what we do
.
We need each other totally alot to say about breaking down
the us versus them tropes, butthe short version is that's been
(18:46):
my whole path.
And then you know you said thebio at the beginning of the
career and the organizationsI've worked for, and I'll just
add to that that it was so earlyon, it was, you know nobody.
So early on I startedidentifying the challenges with
the industry and nobody teachesus in school about this offstage
work required.
Yeah, nodding heads no way, yeah, and so I've been on this path
(19:10):
to really, yes, optimize thebusiness side of what we do.
But also the conclusion I'vecome to is that if we trained
our offstage talent with therigor that we train our onstage
talent, wow, this industry wouldbe so different.
And so that's been more of mywork in recent years is how do I
teach more?
How do I train more?
How do we up level our skillsoffstage so that we can generate
(19:35):
the revenue we need to fund theart we want to produce?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, that's really powerful, because I think of the
arts administrators that I knowwho've come up into that
position, and they start off asplayers, right, or like members
of the orchestra who want tocontribute more, and so they
move their way onto that side ofthings.
The love of the art is there,but the know how of how to put
(19:59):
it out there.
As you know, a functioning andsustainable business is not.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, I think I mean we talk about like systemic
issues.
This is so at the crux of itand there's a lot of systemic
issues, I think, in our industry, but this is a big one where it
just goes back to the days oftraining and because this
offstage work is not addressedand this is starting to change a
little bit.
So sort of caveat to what I'msaying, thank goodness it's
starting to change a little bit.
But because this offstage workby and large is not addressed,
(20:26):
we just all are sort of taughtlike you go and you win the
audition and you play the gigand all this other stuff happens
and the audience turns up andthe donations are given and it's
like magic little fairies justwork back there we learn like oh
yeah, it doesn't really happenthat magic fairy way.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, it's.
It is really fascinating tothink about, and often I think
from the musician perspective,I'll go out there and say that
we have a little bit of a senseof entitlement.
That's like I'm getting hiredto play this job and here's all
these people that are likeworking their butts off to make
sure this happens.
But that's not my job.
My job is just to show up andplay, and I do see that starting
to shift, I think more often,at least in the freelance space,
(21:08):
we have a lot of you know,quote unquote startups, and so
these organizations are actuallylike relatively grassroots and
they're working together withthe musicians to try to build
their product, so to speak.
And to your point, I do thinkthere are things that are
changing about that and thereare more opportunities, I guess,
in training to add an artsadmin component or add some sort
of business component in a waythat was very discouraged for a
(21:30):
long time, as we all know.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Or at least knowledge of these roles.
I'm not saying everybody has tobe proficient in these roles,
but like at least.
I mean there's so many timeslike, yeah, you're nodding your
heads already.
Like you know, musiciansgraduate.
It's incredibly talented whenin audition and then you don't
know anything beyond the lanethey've been told their whole
life to stay in and that's justreally problematic in serving
these broader goals that we allhave.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So yeah, yeah, that's absolutely wild.
Can you give us you know, yourinnovative way of approaching
arts?
Admin, your book title says itall right, run it like a
business.
If you were to give yourelevator pitch to our listeners,
how would you describe yourperspective and what you feel
your mission is in these spaces?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
My brand for many years now has been changing the
narrative and I believe thattrends can be bucked and trends
can be reversed, and that's beena real through line for all of
my work and so the idea of Ireally thrive on change in many
ways.
I know change can be very scary, but I just believe so much
that it's necessary for ourindustry.
So changing the narrative isthe brand I've started to take
(22:29):
more and more of the past.
I don't know year and a halfthat the narrative is changing
slowly, but it is changing.
And even, as you said, there'sso many entrepreneurial
musicians and so many people onstage and off who do not believe
, wow, we do need each othergoing back to breaking down the
us versus them trope and I justreally do see the conversation
shifting, actions shifting inmany cases.
(22:51):
So it changes slow, but it ishappening.
And then the other piece.
This is getting to be a verylong elevator pitch, but the
other piece is it's a longelevator ride we have 12 years.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
We have 12 years.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
We have a long skyscraper.
It's all skyscraper.
The other piece is what yousaid about taking what works in
other industries and, at the endof the day, a lot of our arts
organizations are e-commercebusinesses.
We sell tickets direct toconsumer.
We are content producers.
There's a lot to say about thatDigital content, in-person
content.
We are subscription brands,Like we were kind of the OG
(23:26):
subscription model 50 years agoand that's shifting as
subscriptions and membershipeconomy has shifted.
So a lot to say about that.
But my point is in saying allthis is there are a lot of
things we do not everything, buta lot of things we do that
other industries, specificallyfor-profit businesses, have
really thrived and mastered andI do not think we have to
reinvent the wheel.
I think there's a lot we canlearn from those strategies and
(23:48):
so much of my work yes, aboutthe innovation piece has been
not that original.
It's been adopting thesestrategies that are working
elsewhere, applying that to whatwe do and then, sure enough,
seeing that, yeah, thesestrategies work.
It's not just that we're asecret anomaly somewhere, Like
no, at the end of the day, we'reserving consumers in many ways
and there's just a lot to bedone to optimize that better.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Right.
So as an arts administrator,I'm sure you talked about
bridging the gap between themusicians and the administration
.
So what do you see as an idealsituation where musicians can
involve themselves in theadministrative side and
administrators can kind of reachout to the actual musicians who
are playing the shows?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I think a lot of times it's very simple breaking
down that fourth wall, andsometimes it's just
acknowledging that there is anaudience there, and even that a
lot of times brings up a debateare we here to serve the art or
the audience, and can thesethings coexist?
As my question, I believe yes,and of course we want to serve
the art, but without an audiencewe don't really get to exist as
(24:49):
organizations.
Anyway, so with that sort of ifwe can agree on that as a
common ground, that we serve theart and, yes, we serve an
audience and a community, thenthat starts to, I think, really
change.
Like, how can a musician beinvolved?
Okay, so it's acknowledgingthis audience is very important
to our existence.
And so then it's other littlethings that come from that.
I love involving musicians withdonors.
(25:11):
I know not everybody wants todo that.
I believe in paying musiciansfor their time.
So I'm not trying to say weneed a bunch of free labor
that's not compensated somehow,but I think always just really
opens the door to greater donorconversation, really connecting
them to the work we do, thesethings that we need to do when
we're cultivating and stewardingour donors.
So I could go on and on, but alot of times it really is little
(25:32):
things like that where it'slike it's breaking down the silo
If it's not like the offstagepeople do this work and I do
this work on stage when I showup and instead saying I think
there's a lot more overlap evenin these smaller ways, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So yeah, I wonder too I was just thinking, as this
conversation has been unfoldingthis way about, and I suspect we
would all agree.
It is rooted in the concept ofscarcity, particularly in a
field with we hear aboutdiminishing budgets and
bankruptcies and all sorts ofthings.
Less opportunities formusicians or more musicians out
(26:06):
there and not enoughopportunities.
Keeping up with that, and I'mwondering to kind of reverse it
as opposed to discussing what wecan do differently, what do you
see in the offstage presence?
What do you see as the biggestbarriers that are getting in the
way of making that progress?
Or what did you see in yourexperiences that kind of got you
(26:27):
to shift?
And I know you've mentionedbeing data-driven as well, so I
think statistics probably backup anything that you have.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
I think this point of data let's stay on that for a
bit because we'll work backwardsto the end of your question
what prevents us from kind ofreally honing in on the data?
I think I get asked this a lotand I think the answer this is
just my opinion.
I don't have data to back upthis opinion, but I'm good, I
love opinions.
Okay, and I think it's becauseour art form is so subjective.
(26:53):
Art is in the eye of thebeholder right, and there are
definitely standards ofexcellent playing, of course, in
ways that are morestraightforward, but on the
whole it's subjective, andevaluating art of any discipline
is often subjective.
And so I think because that isfor hundreds of years true of
our art form that then as theart form evolved into a
(27:13):
professionalized, actual branchof management, writing the book,
I went deep into the researchof how did arts administration
as a field come about and theevolution of that.
That's part of it.
And then over maybe the lastlike 40 years I would say, is
when management side of thingsreally did become more
professionalized, like I said,as a subdiscipline of business
management as a whole.
(27:33):
And you start marrying thatwith everything we've already
said about the way our trainingis and how people come into
these administrative roles orlack of training on the offstage
stuff.
You know, all of those thingswe've said put all that together
in subjectivity and I thinkit's kind of a recipe for not
having originated artsadministration that is, not
having originated from businessfundamentals in the way other
(27:55):
subdisciplines of business andmanagement were built.
So, like I said, that's myopinion and there is some
research in that as I shared.
But that's me just trying tosort of amalgamate what I've
learned about the history of ourprofession, and so I think this
is a way the narrative ischanging that in terms of people
in our field wanting to be moredata driven, I felt like I used
to be pretty alone on the datasoap box and we've come so far
(28:18):
in that and now more theconversation is not like refusal
of data I would say sometimesthat happens, but not as much.
It's more like how, how do I dothis, how do I leverage data,
how do I learn about my ownpatron database?
And that's a shift in a goodway.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, I think also, like we have the tendency to
think that we're special and Ithink you alluded to this way
before Like nobody gets us,nobody understands classical
music like we understandclassical music, so you couldn't
possibly teach me anything fromthe business side of things.
So what's been the biggestthing in your experience that
(28:53):
you've taken over from thebusiness world or concept that's
absolutely worked in theclassical music world?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
User experience research.
Okay, so let's unpack that anddefine that User experience
research for anybody listening,if you don't know, it's just
going to your user, meaning yourcustomer, and asking them about
their experience.
And this, for me, changedeverything.
I am not being dramatic when Isay that because, like so many
of us, I just had thesepreconceived notions of what an
(29:21):
audience member does or doesn'tknow about our art form, and
I've learned there's a real biascalled hindsight bias and it's
the phenomenon that when peoplelearn something, they forget
what it's like to not know thatthing.
Okay, so that applies so much towhat we do when we're talking
about marketing, presentation ofour product, concert experience
(29:42):
, all of those things, becausewe just forget what it's like to
not know what we know aboutclassical music.
And so, doing user experienceresearch, we've learned things
like smart grown adults who areintelligent, well educated, but
just don't really go toclassical music and then combine
that with the decline in publicmusic education.
Like, what I've learned is likethe baseline of grown adults is
(30:03):
they don't even always know thenames of the instruments.
Okay, no judgment, like when Ifirst realized that I was.
Like, talk about hindsight bias, I cannot remember not knowing
the names of the instruments.
Yes yeah, right.
So the scales fell off my eyeswhen I started to understand,
like, oh, there is a massivedisconnect between what a new
(30:23):
audience member knows.
Again, smart, educated, grownadults, millennials, gen Xers
the knowledge gap is so broadbetween what they know and what
I know.
And once I realized no judgment, just trying to understand
where this disconnect is, I waslike, oh okay, so then what do
we do with that?
User experience research?
It's really about asking themhow they feel.
So this is important because alot of times organizations are
like oh, I'm gonna go to theaudience and ask them should we
(30:46):
program more or less Beethoven?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't do that.
Instead, user experience isabout how do we feel.
So what do they feel?
They feel intimidated, theyfeel unwelcome, they feel like
they're so curious but likethose means are not getting met
and they want to learn, but theycan't, because if they don't
understand the names of theinstruments, for example, they
don't understand instrumentationwhen that's what's in the
(31:07):
program notes.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Right 222.
That's so true.
Of course, it's so true.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Like why, oh my God, why should they care?
I mean honestly, why shouldthey care Honestly?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, yeah.
But it breaks it down to likewhy do people come?
They come to feel and they cometo be moved, yes, and they
don't come shopping for oneexperience or another, they just
want the whole experience to beone that moves them.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I have this like quick anecdote about this exact
thing.
I was playing a festival thissummer in a rural town in
Pennsylvania I've done it formany years and it's a college
campus where we do this festivaland we were at one of the local
hangs just having some beer andpizza for rehearsal and this 21
year old student from thecollege who's in a frat comes
over and just wants a biasedpitcher of beer because he's
(31:55):
like oh hey, you guys areclearly not from around here,
let's just say hi and hang out,whatever.
And sure enough we start havinga conversation telling them
what we're there for and he'sjust like aghast.
He took a music appreciationclass in college and that's
about like the extent of hisknowledge and we went around and
played that game.
Guess what instrument I play?
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, because it says a lot about your
personality and all that.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So we wanted him to do that.
We were like you need to guesswhat instruments we play.
And he's like I wouldn't evenknow what to say.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
He knew band instruments.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I think we mentioned cello and he was like, don't
know what that is.
And we're like, well, come tothe concert tomorrow, you can
find out.
And it ended up being thislittle mini opportunity I hate
to use the word educate, butjust to give someone a new
window of experience that theyhadn't had before, just by
having the conversation with us.
We'd talk to him about themusic and just shop talk.
(32:48):
He's sitting there like aghastand just totally mesmerized by
this ridiculous shop talk we'redoing.
And sure enough, he came byhimself, dressed himself up.
I had a comp ticket.
He came to the concert.
Sarah Chang played violin.
It was amazing, it wasbeautiful.
Of course he doesn't know whoSarah Chang is, but he was just
like that was so awesome.
But just, he had context, yeah,it's so good.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Right, okay, so I have to respond to some of that
because it's so spot on so youhesitate to do.
Is where it's education?
I don't.
I now say, when I'm workingwith marketing teams, like
marketing is education, that isyour job.
When you just put the programlistening on the website, that
is not enough.
Like they don't know and thatbecame clear in the user
experience research we've donewe look at a program and we're
like, oh, copeland, shostakovichand whoever else, like we know,
(33:32):
okay, some American music, someRussian music, some maybe 20th
century, right, we know, we'reinstantly processing this.
They have no idea, no idea.
And so, as one participant putit, they said I want to know, is
this a romantic comedy or atragedy?
And it's like, oh right, likewe infer so much about these
composers and what that programlooks like just from those names
and again, they don't have thatcontext.
(33:53):
So, education, education,education all the time.
And there's a lot about that oflike storytelling.
It doesn't have to be pedanticeducation, but, yes, all these
things that we learned in school.
If let's talk about Shostakovichresponse to the Russian
government, right, where it'slike, yeah, yeah, we know, we
know, we know, but they don'tknow, so let's talk about it.
Anyways, there's all that.
But then the part you said alsoabout once that person came to
(34:13):
the concert.
Okay, so this is the otherthing we've seen in our user
experience research, and nowI've seen this reproduced
multiple times at manyorganizations.
But when you're actuallytalking about the product itself
not the concert experience, notthe program book, but like the
music on stage they're alwayslike wow, wow, I had no idea,
and I mean I literally heardthem say I didn't know it would
(34:35):
sound that different thanSpotify.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
And it's like again no judgment, but they don't know
any better.
They didn't know.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Yeah.
And so, like I said, when I saythis stuff changed everything
for me, I'm like, okay, themusic itself is not the problem,
the performance.
I mean.
It goes right back to theexceptional training our artists
have.
That's the piece we've workedon as an industry hole for
hundreds of years to deliverexceptionally well.
And we do.
And that emotion, that feelingis awe and that is what we
(35:03):
deliver, and it's like okay,everything else tangential to
that, that's the part of thebusiness.
That's where the opportunitylies.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I love that so much and it's such a subtle shift,
but such an important shift tothink of that gap in knowledge
not as a barrier but as anopportunity.
Right, it's like, oh my gosh,there's this huge potential
audience.
I just need to package it inthe right way and talk to them
where they are and help themlearn about what we do, and
(35:34):
that's where the growth is.
It's not about bringing peopleup to our level so they can
appreciate what we do and saywow, wow, wow.
It's like crossing that littlebarrier, yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, and the wow is going to come.
I mean, that's the thing it'sgoing to come If we get past
unintimidated as an emotion andswitch that to no.
I know I will learn somethingwhen.
I'm there I know I will begiven the tools I need to
understand what's going on and Iwill feel like I belong.
The wow will come.
That's the part we've got onlock everybody.
The wow will come.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Is it fair to ask and I ask this as a musician, I
granted a very business-drivensort of musician, but I think
it's a good question to throwout there Is it fair that of our
musicians, of our artists, thatthere's maybe more that's
required of them now, as opposedto just that?
To your point.
You mentioned this.
You said we deliver aShostakovich symphony.
(36:24):
Well, yeah, generations of ushave been getting better and
better and better and better atplaying Shostakovich symphonies
together, and so at some point,is there more that's required of
us as the artist, to engagewith those supporters, those
users, those audience members,and how can we sell the benefit
of that being part of theresponsibility of a professional
(36:44):
musician?
Is that extra piece of it thefirst thing?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
that was coming to my mind as you were saying, that
is, there is more required ofall of us.
There is also a lot morerequired of administrators too.
So it's right back to thehistory we were talking about 40
years ago.
They didn't have to beproficient and user experience
research it's just harder forall of us.
This goes right back to.
We are all on the same teamdoing this together.
The disservice is that it's nottold to anybody.
The end getting going rightback to the systemic issues, and
(37:09):
so it just feels like the morethat's expected is the awareness
and knowledge of all of this.
I find not always, becausethere are some musicians who are
recalcitrant, but by and largeI think that's less and less the
case.
I see, and more and more, whatI see are musicians who say I
get it, I want our art to have afuture, therefore we need
(37:31):
supporters, and so that reallystarts to unlock like, well,
what do we do to get there?
And so to me, a lot of timeswhen the awareness happens and
we have these conversations, andeven back at the California
Symphony when I was running theorganization, watching us go
from half empty halls to soldout performances, and it's like.
Even that's just a reallearning for all of us together.
(37:52):
Of course, the ensemble wouldrather play to a full house than
a half empty house.
This is a no brainer and just,but even just seeing, like the
energy change and, of course, inthe hall, but then on stage,
the energy change and like,absolutely it's hard to have a
conversation about that.
These are, like you know, veryintangible moments, but it's
like when that's when it startscoming together and it's like,
okay, I do get it, we do needeach other.
(38:12):
Yes, and maybe it isn't justarts for art's sake, because,
wow, I feel more fulfilled whenthis house is erupting and
applause when I'm done.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's the community, it's the connection
with the audience, which issomething that Liz and I have
talked about tons of times here.
You know that's what we do artfor right.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
But we forget.
It's much easier if you're inan intimate setting.
You know I think about thisoften that in chamber music it
doesn't necessarily translate.
Because you have that immediateresponsibility, there's less of
you.
You are acutely aware of theenergy of the audience.
They're usually physicallycloser to your space.
But for a very long time I saton that stage as an orchestra
member and I felt uncomfortableabout the disconnect and I was
(38:54):
convinced that all we were doingit for was ourselves, that we
were like I'm having thisexperience, like there's just
people sitting out there, butthey're just people sitting out
there, right.
And that is the important shift,I think, for musician mindset
and you've said this sobrilliantly, aubrey, I don't
think we'd heard this before,but Stephanie and I were just
talking about this last week tothe same effect that we have
(39:17):
that hindsight bias and once wewere aware of something, it's
hard to remember what it waslike to not be aware of it.
But we have a lot of colleagueswho probably still feel that
disconnect for whatever reason.
You know, there's so manyreasons that you can feel that
disconnect and just theinspiration to be more engaged
in the organizations you play in, even as a sub, and I think
(39:38):
that's an important thing to saytoo that the musician is valued
no matter what, because theirpresence on stage creates the
thing that's being shared withthat audience, but the audience
is experiencing that person too.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I think what you said about chamber music is so true
too, like you have to show up inthat way for chamber music and
then with the orchestra, youknow, when you're one of 80 or
however many people are on stage, then it is easier to be
anonymized, and I think itencourages in a weird way this
disconnect, or allows for it,like the setting allows for it
more, maybe not encourages.
And I will say also to yourpoint of like, even when you
(40:10):
show up as a sub, not to toot myown horn music music pun, I
forget if this was like a yearor two ago sometime.
Well, after I had left theCalifornia Symphony, a
substitute musician emailed meand said I forget why they had
reached out, but they were likeI just wanted to tell you I had
played as a sub several timesand I was like, oh yeah, I
(40:31):
recognize that name and it's ofcourse Bay Area, the freeway
fill harmonics.
The freelancers are so much ofthe orchestral just Bay Area
scene here.
And they were like, havingplayed with everybody is
different.
When I showed up there in agood way and I was, I didn't
expect it but in so many wayslike the greatest compliment
because I was like, oh my God,like I talk about audience,
(40:51):
audience, audience all day long.
And here was a musician whosaid, when I showed up, I felt
like I belonged, yeah, and I waslike, oh my God, everything
makes sense, like if we createplaces of inclusivity and
belonging and we're here workingin the same direction.
I don't know, I get really, youknow, poetic about it, but like
you can be a freelancer andabsolutely be contributing in a
meaningful way to everythingwe're talking about.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Absolutely.
Yeah, we've all had thoseexperiences being freelancers
and it's a lovely cycle that ifyou can build that inclusivity,
then it impacts the musicians onstage, which then impacts the
audience.
They can feel the vibe.
It's, you know, only positives.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, and there are organizations where, even as a
sub, you feel like you're a partof what's happening, and
there's the opposite is true aswell.
But I know, I really noticedthat.
I noticed that energy, if notimmediately, then pretty quickly
.
But it's often when you have anorganization that's trying to
innovate the way that they'redoing business.
You know, just like lookingahead, I mean being more engaged
(41:49):
, so all-encompassing, right,but it's that's really what it
comes down to from every aspect.
You know, having thatengagement.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, so, aubrey, you have this book that's coming
out in February.
Could you give us a couplehighlights?
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I mean, we got a sneak peek we should share.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
We were able to read a little bit about vertical
integration of artsorganizations and how we can
incorporate these things likeeducation, how we can
incorporate those into the modelso that arts organizations can
be run more like businesses.
So can you talk a little bitabout vertical integration and
what that means in the art space?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, hearing you bring this up, I'm like right,
this brings together so manythings.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
We've already talked about this.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
This is great.
This is great.
Vertical integration this isanother one of these like
vocabulary words that isdefinitely not a classical music
word, a business word, sure,but not even used that often.
So to define it it is when anorganization brings under one
roof, sort of brings in house,components of the business or
industry that would otherwise beoperated under separate
(42:54):
businesses, institutions.
Okay, so what does that looklike for us Education?
So we've talked all abouttraining and what's the typical
model?
You go to school to learn toplay an instrument, and that is
one institution.
And then you join an orchestraor freelance, and that's a
separate institution.
But what happens for the peoplewho don't want to play
(43:14):
professionally but want tocontinue to play their
instrument?
Not a lot of opportunity forthat kind of person.
And I mean there are communityorchestras.
I would say that's the outletthat I can think of that exists
for that type of person.
Okay, so vertical integrationand this is just one example
would be to say we offer that asa revenue stream.
(43:34):
Grown adults who have money tospend and want to continue this
hobby pursuit at a high level tothem.
How do they get a great teacher?
Could we bring that under ourroof as a revenue stream.
The artist gets paid, theorganization takes a cut for the
administrative aspects of it.
There are severalentrepreneurial musicians and I
talk in the book and you readthis of you know, at major
orchestras LA Phil, MetropolitanOpera who are doing this on
(43:57):
their own.
And that's fine Entrepreneurialmusicians all the way.
They've got this great.
But I'm interested to exploreare there musicians who say,
yeah, I see this, I see theopportunity there, I want extra
money in my pocket.
Could we broker this where theorganization does all this
administrative lift for me?
Okay, so that's one, just oneexample of vertical integration.
If anybody's hearing this andthey're like absolutely not
(44:19):
Aubrey that's okay, noteverybody has to agree with this
.
But that's just one example.
Let me give a business exampleand then I'll come back to
another musical example.
But businesses, amazon is likethe king, king of vertical
integration.
So Amazon, oh gosh.
Originally they had outsideshipping and distribution right.
It used to be through UPS orwhoever they use.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Back in that way, back when in the dark ages.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
I remember that and house over warehousing, shipping
, distribution, right.
Okay, we call that Amazon Prime.
Same thing with web hosting.
They used to host their websiteI don't know somewhere else,
and then they developed theirown internal capability to host
websites and then they said, oh,we could market this to others.
That became Amazon web services, and AWS is now, I think, the
(45:06):
largest hosting platform of theentire internet of if they're
not number one, then they'renumber two, they're big.
Okay.
Then they started manufacturingtheir own products.
They call that Amazon basics,right.
So I could go on and on.
But that's what Amazon does.
Like I said, they are the kingof.
It used to be separateinstitutions, separate
operational entities.
They bring all this stuff inhouse.
So that's what I'm trying tosay.
Or like how do we start to peelback?
(45:27):
Like what are the things thatwe take for granted as needing
to be separate?
That, if we bring it in, isthere a way that for an
organization, it does bring inadditional revenue streams?
Okay, so then I said we comeback to music.
So another one is we talkedabout the lack of training for
our offstage talent.
Yes, I wanted to ask you aboutthat we do have a growing number
(45:49):
of masters of artsadministration programs and
things like that.
So that's great.
Those programs exist and thatis fine and that is serving our
industry better than 20, 30years ago, when these programs
didn't exist.
Great.
Is it fixing everything?
Is it serving everybody whowants an offstage role?
Definitely not.
So I think there's opportunityfor organizations to offer
administrative training andcharge for it.
(46:09):
Could that be a great way tothen who we hire?
I think there's just a lot there, because what I do see also,
even as I worked over the yearswith different interns that come
from these masters of artsadministration programs, I mean,
this is true across so manyindustries, but what they
learned in the classroom isdifferent than them putting it
into practice.
And even among really smart,motivated, driven students and
young professionals, I see thegap of like they can think about
(46:32):
data, maybe, but they do notknow how to pull the report from
the database.
Okay, that's a tacticaltraining element that we need to
fix, because you're not of muchhelp to me If you can't
actually extract the data you'retalking about theoretical, so
right there's just bless ourhearts by the way.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Can we?
Speaker 3 (46:49):
build in programs like that.
And then there areorganizations already doing this
.
So anybody who's like, wow, sheis off her rocker.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Organizations are doing it.
Beth Morrison projects is agreat example.
They have their producersAcademy.
They're known for bringing newwork to the stage.
So how do you do it?
How do you go from A to B,commissioning a new work to
(47:09):
bringing it to the stage, togetting it funded, to working
out all the financials of whogets paid and who does what and
did it?
You know like they teach that.
Okay, great.
They have since developedsmaller programs to like kind of
like the sprints or I don'tknow what they call it, but like
here's the finance three daycourse.
Then over time, they got thatfunded by I think it was Melon
Foundation, but one of the bigfoundations gave them this like
(47:30):
multi million, multi year grantor something like that.
Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit,but it was a lot of money, is
the point and really allowedthem to more institutionalize
this.
So now they're getting fundingfrom a grantor, funding in terms
of revenue stream from theparticipants.
They've now made it a gateway Italked about gateway to hiring,
a gateway to a paid fellowship,internship, and the people who
(47:52):
participate are getting paid forthat fellowship.
This is not unpaid labor.
I believe in paying musiciansfor their labor.
I believe in paying offstagetalent for their labor, even at
an internship role.
So all this is to say like it'sjust become for them this
really significant part of theirinstitution and how they do
business.
Are there ways we can make somemoney and bring this in house
Like I am all for those things.
How do we make more money?
Speaker 1 (48:14):
I mean the idea of offering some sort of
professional training in houseand having multiple
organizations participate insomething like that.
Then the possibilities thereare so endless.
I want to ask you a questionthat's kind of leading into this
.
Okay, so I am a huge fan of theconcept of social
(48:35):
entrepreneurship and I thinkthat there's a big place for
entrepreneurship within the arts, and a while back I remember
saving it because I was like,yes, she's starting to talk
about it.
You had a rumination onlineabout LLC versus nonprofit or
running as a for-profit versus anonprofit.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
And.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
I'm wondering if, in the work that you're doing right
now with the book and you'retalking about this vertical
integration concept, there arethese new, I think services and
or products that are beingimagined to be offered and
developed.
Is there a path, or do you feellike you're further along the
path, of conceptualizing a wayfor arts organizations to become
(49:12):
for-profit organizations?
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I get asked this more and more.
This is sort of stream ofconsciousness.
I'll just tell you thedifferent ways I've thought
about this.
The end is I don't know that wecan be for-profit.
I think people are sometimessurprised to hear me say that,
especially because I'm all likebusiness and I want more money
and all of this.
But I don't know, because thebiggest expense we have is our
people.
This is true for mostorganizations, most companies.
(49:36):
Like.
Your labor expense, no matter ifyou're making widgets or
producing orchestra concerts isyour people, musicians and
administrative staff.
We do not bring in enoughearned revenue to cover those
costs.
We just don't.
That's one of the big reasonswe're non-profits in the first
place.
We have to fundraise to fill inthat gap.
So if we were to becomefor-profit, it's not going to
come from earned revenue, it'sjust not.
(49:58):
I don't think I know there'sgoing to be somebody out there
who's like yuck, you stream itand you stream it to a million
people and they all pay.
Yeah, if we stream it to amillion people and they start
paying, great, show me how thatwould make that happen, because
even Berlin Phil is not makingthat happen.
That kind of sale, again, noshade, but they're a big global
brand doing this already, but Ijust don't see the path in
earned revenue to pay for whatwe do.
So then it begs the questionokay, then what are these other
(50:21):
revenue streams?
And then that's where you weresaying, liz, I think of like,
okay, if you're talking aboutvertical integration, could we
do this?
Maybe, maybe.
I don't know if we really wereable to build these things out,
and maybe that's the answer.
If we really were able to makethat, it would have to be a
massive.
I mean, we're now talking over50% of our revenue as an
institution would have to comefrom that work which then starts
(50:42):
to get into.
It's just so fundamentallydifferent in terms of the
products we're offering.
Could we do it?
Maybe?
That would not be a fast shift,that would take years to build.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, especially for the largest of the organizations
.
I mean operating budgets of aPhiladelphia orchestra, for
example.
Like is wild.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
wild to envision, yeah, and as you're building out
those programs.
You need more people to runthose programs, so it's in your
adding labor expense.
So I don't know, maybe, butyeah, I do get really interested
in what are the alternaterevenue streams.
Could we not be so dependent ongiving?
Or could we keep giving becauseit like keep the donation
component and stay nonprofit?
Nonprofit doesn't mean youdon't make money, nonprofit is
(51:18):
just the tax status.
We could still turn a profitand invest that back into the
endowment or other initiativeswe want or raises for everybody
here here.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
you know like so yeah , it's so fascinating to think
about and, yeah, the possiblesolutions are far down the road.
I have this thing about theconcept of needing to be for
lack of a better word and maybethere's a way to reframe this,
so I'm throwing it out thereneeding someone's charity in
order to do what we do that Ialways have had trouble with.
(51:46):
I've always felt like man, Ihave so much more ownership over
the thing I do and I'd ratherit be like wow, I value this
thing that you offer so muchthat I will pay you to do it at
this level.
You know, I'll pay you thismuch.
This patron says, instead of itbeing this charitable donation.
Like you're worth this much,you know, like it's, it's that's
(52:06):
that's the part that I'm likehow can that be reframed?
But it's, it's a long way away,yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
I think you're absolutely right.
There's a lot of systemic,entrenched issues with
philanthropy as a whole, notjust in the arts, but this idea
that we are so beholden todonors and big donors call the
shots and are we worthy, andthere's just so much like goes
back to like colonialism andsome of these like things that
as a nation we're really kind ofexploring and unpacking
(52:34):
together, and so I really hatethat kind of philanthropy.
I hate going to ask for donorswhere it's this weird power
dynamic and like you have to beall mousy about it, but instead,
when there's values alignment,which you mentioned, that
changes things, then you'retalking to more like would you
be an investor in what we'redoing.
Or but in our peers expectreturns, but the return is not
(52:55):
financial in this case.
It's emotional impact in thecommunity or you know some other
currency.
But for me and maybe this ishow it would be reframe I don't
think that the donation piecelike in and of itself is what's
broken.
It's what's like theundercurrent behind that.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
There's a lot tied up in musicians having patrons and
feeling unworthy, feeling likewe can't do it on our own.
And so that's the big piece.
I think in the discomfort withnonprofits, like no one's going
to pay us outright for theseservices, so we need donors to
legitimize what we're doing withour lives and for a living
(53:32):
Maybe that's just a deep thing.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
That's so true for hundreds of years, right, yes,
right Back to the beginning,yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Yeah, starving artists.
Yeah.
So, aubrey, your book is comingout in February.
Where can people learn moreabout it?
Where can they contact you?
Where can they preorder yourbook?
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Thank, you for asking that AubreyBurghourcom slash
book.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
That's where you need to go.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
Perfect, you can preorder.
This fall we're going to rollout some preorder incentives.
How do you get a signed copy ifanybody wants that kind of
stuff?
So it's all coming, butAubreyBurghourcom slash book and
it's there right now so anybodycan go learn more.
Check it out and, yes, preorderplease.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
If this conversation has been of interest to you,
then you will love the book ifyou like what we're talking
about here, and if it's notnecessary to say, maybe it's
worth saying anyway that forthose of us in the musician side
of things we started by talkingabout it us versus them, old
school mentality that I thinkthere's a lot of work being done
to sort of erode that and kindof bridge the gap between
(54:31):
offstage and onstage.
So, as musicians, I thinkthere's something very inspiring
about having an ownership overthe organizations in which you
work and understanding how theycan grow and how they can evolve
, because that's where our workcomes from.
And so, instead of that feelingof like throwing your hands up
and saying, well, they don'thave enough money to pay us, you
(54:52):
know, like that's a bummer, Iguess I'm going to have to find
some other job.
Instead of that, it's more of aproactive approach of saying,
okay, how can we be a part ofthis too?
And I think the more that thatgap is bridged, I think the
better for everybody.
Right?
Agree, 100%.
What about anything else you'reup to?
Do you do coach?
What do you do like besideswriting books these days?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yeah, there are a couple of ways for people who
want more to get more.
I launched earlier this year aonline community, so that's also
on my website, aribergarracomslash community and what I love
about it is we have members whoare administrators and artists
and we're talking about comingtogether.
We're talking about bridgingthe gap, and I created the space
(55:35):
for I say arts professionals,and that means everybody, all of
us and we do professionaldevelopment events, we do
networking events, we do openoffice hours with me and, like I
said, it started earlier thisyear.
So that's a good option forpeople who want a space where we
can have more of theseconversations, want to meet more
like minded, forward thinkingpeople on stage, offstage, all
(55:58):
of that.
So everybody is welcome, veryawesome.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Thank you so much for joining us today.
This has been lovely.
I feel motivated lit up.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Inspired do some, I don't know.
Arts advocacy.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Well, thank you both for doing what you do.
It's, it's.
It's been a pleasure,Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Thank you so much for listening today.
If you loved this episode,consider writing us a five star
review on Apple podcasts, amazonmusic, spotify or wherever you
listen.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Thanks also to our season sponsor, Potter Violence.
Speaker 1 (56:30):
If you'd like to support the podcast and get
access to bonus content,consider joining our Patreon
community.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
You can buy all your Musician centric merch,
including shirts, water bottles,koozies and a variety of other
fun items.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Our theme music was written and produced by JP
Wogerman and is performed byStefan myself.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Our episodes are produced by Liz O'Hara and
edited by Emily McMahon.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Thanks again for listening.
Let's talk soon.
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