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Offering children a new lens to listen through
I grew up attending family orchestral concerts with my mother, two childhood friends and their parents, and my piano teacher who, contrary to the stereotype, I was very fond of. We would head over to the symphony hall every few months to experience the orchestra, and I was even encouraged to enjoy the experience more with the promise of a trip to a favorite restaurant afterwards. Experiencing entertainment aimed at children just my age, with people I loved, the opportunity should have all led to positive experiences with the orchestra. Yet, every family concert morning, I would wake up with dread of the boredom that I was about to endure. I grew up hating orchestral kid’s concerts!
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Beyond the Stage: Preparing Conservatory Musicians for 21st Century Careers
Five years ago, the Colburn School asked a fundamental question: How do we prepare conservatory students for careers in the 21st century? There were many suggestions put forward, but one idea kept rising to the top. Professional musicians entering the work field, the group agreed, must also be great teachers.
“Regardless of career path, musicians of the 21st century will always teach,” said Colburn Conservatory of Music Dean Richard Beene. “It is our responsibility to prepare students at the conservatory for a variety of careers in classical music, and teaching is a skill we hope all of our students acquire during their time at the Colburn School.”
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Designing Better Leaders through Cross-Sector Collaboration
There’s absolutely nothing revolutionary about leadership development. All across the country (and the world) opportunities to enhance and develop one’s professional skills seem to be popping up in every corner. But when the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia (ABC) won a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, we chose to take leadership development in a direction that encouraged arts administrators to not just think about themselves as nonprofit leaders but as Leaders, with a capital “L”.
According to Americans for the Art’s latest Creative Industries Report, the City of Philadelphia has the fifth highest percentage of arts-related jobs in a comparison of the 100 largest cities in nation (4.94%, including both for-profit and nonprofit creative industries). At number five, our creative community is both ahead of the pack and has room to grow, and what better way to grow this sector than to invest in its leaders.
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Artist Advocacy - An essential part of Arts Administration
In December of 2013, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies released a fact sheet about support for individual artists. They began the report with the following:
“Artists form the foundation of a state’s creative environment. They act as creators and individual entrepreneurs who provide many of the products and designs that drive innovation and shape a state’s cultural character. Many artists also work as educators, providing training in creative skills and passing on cultural traditions from one generation to the next.”
This is a descriptive, not a prescriptive statement. This is something that many, if not most, if not ALL of us, can probably agree with to some degree. And it is important to keep this in mind, as arts administrators, when it comes to artist advocacy. Because artist advocacy is a matter of culture and values.
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Cards Against Humanity: Arts Management Expansion Pack
Cards Against Humanity is marketed as a party game for horrible people. It is essentially a politically incorrect, dark humored game of mad libs. Gameplay with Cards Against Humanity is very simple. Each round someone asks a question from a black card and each player responds with his or her funniest white card. There are holiday, 90’s nostalgia, and science expansion packs available. While there is currently no official arts management expansion pack, arts management education is preparing an increasingly diverse student population to handle the smorgasbord of circumstances, from hilarious to heartbreaking, that arts administrators tackle every day.
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Marketing is from Mars; Development is from Venus
Let’s face it: sometimes it seems like marketing and development couldn’t be more different.
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Culture as the New Solution
The intrinsic impact of the arts is one that is well known, but a challenge to prove. In the face of arguments that frame arts and culture as entertainment, as a sign of privilege, and not as a priority, our field has worked hard to advocate for the value of the arts. Sure, economic impact of the arts is strong, but is a weak advocacy argument that fails to recognize the big picture: cultural experiences are more than entertainment and more than revenue generators, and Philadelphia is armed with the data to tell this story. Ideally, this will put culture at the table with social service organizations and City departments to build new solutions for endemic community issues.
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I Wanna Live Forever
"And we don't care about the young folks, talking 'bout the young style, And we don't care about the old folks, talking 'bout the old style too" -Peter Bjorn and John
I am always excited to read the Emerging Leaders blog salon -- to hear new stories of innovative practices and trends and to read about where our field is headed. Emerging leaders now have the capacity to combine access to big data, informational trends, and artistic vision in ways unheard of even a decade ago. Our standard arts presentation models struggle under the weight of our changing society and have yet to reckon with the new information at our disposal. Take data on aging, for example. What does it look like to re-imagine strategic planning in light of this?
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Creating Growth the Smart Way: 3 things an Aquarium can teach Arts Institutions
The Georgia Aquarium had 3.5 million visitors in its inaugural year. This massive launch earned the cultural institution notoriety, donations, and public affection. But, as the novelty of its exhibits dulled, attendance at the state-of-the art facility dropped by 40% in the ensuing years. This steep slide raised flags amongst the staff, who began to ask questions: Why is this happening? Is this normal? What can we do about it?
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Rise to the Occasion: Emerging Leaders Networks Can be Catalysts for Change
David Bowie said “The future belongs to those that hear it coming.” As the arts sectors faces challenges of shrinking funding, aging audiences and wavering government support, professional groups, like Rising Arts Leaders of San Diego (RALSD), offer hubs of new ideas, fresh faces, and unjaded ambition. Leveraging our emerging leaders’ passion and talent, we can start to make real impact on our communities and the sustainability of the arts. But we have to act now!
Guided by Rising Arts Leader’s vision to Make San Diego an innovative, inspiring, world-class arts leader, the network took practicing leadership to a new level by creating solutions to the challenges that face our sector. Our steering committee started with a listening campaign; doing short surveys at networking happy hours, hosting workshops that brought together admin, funders and constituents, and through our annual Creative Conversation event, defined the five biggest hurdles in our city.
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Play Harder, Work Harder: Experiments Within Emerging Leaders Networks
When was the last time that you were told to “play harder”? Unless you happen to work at an extremely progressive workplace such as this one—where employees can mentally recharge in a gallery-turned-ball pit—the possibilities for play tend to disappear as we grow older. While arts nonprofits tend to acknowledge that creative thinking and experimentation propel innovation, resources are rarely allocated towards opportunities for staff to regularly weave play with work.
