Orchestra Administrators Needed: A Satisfying Career Choice

When orchestras of the same size announce an opening for executive director, they are lucky to get a dozen applications! They often have no choice but to engage an executive search firm, because eight or ten applicants from the entire United States is not as broad or deep a pool as one would want to draw from.

Why is it that despite the proliferation over the past 20 or 30 years of arts administration programs at universities throughout the United States, there is still such a talent shortage in the field of orchestra management?  How is it that we have so many more conductors (and conductor hopefuls) than managers? I understand the gratification of conducting, and I understand the way that making music might inspire young, musically gifted students. But the marketplace should tell them something! Three hundred applicants for the job of music director of a small orchestra that gives six or eight concerts a year means that 299 of them won't get that position. And I know, from reference-checking calls I get, how many of the same conductors keep on trying.

While I know that the satisfaction of managing an orchestra cannot match the satisfaction of conducting one, I stopped saying a number of years ago that if I had it all to do over again I would have studied conducting. Thank you very much, but I believe I made the right choice! But if I did, why are so few others finding orchestra management an attractive career option?

One problem, which is not true for conductors, is that the number of administrative positions in American orchestras has increased exponentially over the past two or three decades, whereas the number of conductor positions has not. For any concert of any orchestra, you need one conductor (okay, not if you're doing Stockhausen's Gruppen, but let's not be silly here). A small orchestra needed one music director in 1960, and it needs one music director today.

But many orchestras that were volunteer run in the 1960s and 70s have simply grown too big and complex to be run entirely by volunteers. And many smaller orchestras that had one single executive director in those years have grown to the point where they have a senior staff of two or three. Staff sizes have grown, not as some will charge because managers like to hire staff--that absurd canard cannot survive serious examination--but because managing orchestras has grown more complicated as we have professionalized the field (and paid musicians at much better rates than we did 40 years ago). Thus the number of administrative positions required around the country has multiplied as rapidly as the talent pool has expanded. Perhaps even more rapidly.

Having spent a lifetime in orchestra administration, I can honestly say to any young person who has a passion for music, a reasonably well developed business sense, and most importantly an ability to inspire and lead people and bring them together, you should look at the field of orchestra administration. Examine the programs of the League of American Orchestras: the Orchestra Management Fellowship Program, the Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar given annually, and other professional development opportunities. Explore arts administration degrees, or get an entry-level job at an orchestra near you. It may not be as rewarding as conducting Mahler's Second Symphony, but you are much more likely to succeed in the administration field given the classic marketplace issues of supply and demand.