Artistic Authority in Orchestras: A Tricky Balance

To start with, if an orchestra has to answer that question, something is already wrong. In a healthy orchestral organization, large or small, there are checks and balances. There is discussion, and there is consensus.

Certainly one doesn't want a board artistic advisory committee telling the conductor to program the Brahms Second instead of the Brahms Third. The key word in that committee's job description is "advisory."  It is more rational for such a committee to function as a feedback mechanism about big-picture programming, reflecting what it believes the community thinks about the orchestra's programming, and at the same time learning why the music director does what he does, and acting back in the community to represent that music director and the orchestra's point of view.

But the conductor who doesn't want to listen to anyone, who says "all artistic decisions are my province," is a conductor who should buy his own orchestra. The fact is that there is almost no such thing as a purely artistic decision. Programming decisions have marketing implications as well as artistic ones, and may have fund-raising components too. They also have expense ramifications, if the decisions result in a need to hire extra players or hold extra rehearsals. Any conductor who insists on an unfettered right to spend the institution's money is a conductor who does not understand how orchestral organizations work; they are not personal fiefdoms, not even for wonderfully talented conductors.

In my years of traveling around the country and visiting orchestras, this balance of artistic authority has come up over and over gain as a source of institutional tension. Conductors who insist on the right to choose guest conductors, and the right to choose programs for those guest conductors; who insist on doing more difficult new music than the audience is willing to tolerate; who insist on expensive tours that are more valuable to the development of their careers than they are to the actual mission of the orchestra--all of these are signs of a conductor who needs to have controls built up around him.

On the other hand, boards and/or managers who do not even want a conductor's input into guest conductors and other artistic choices, who insist on "approval" of all pieces on all programs, who do not recognize the artistic leadership role of the music director--"leadership" is different from "total control" or "unfettered authority"--also need reining in.

Getting the balance right is tricky, and when the discussion turns to the question of "who has the power" instead of "what is the right way to do this for our organization," one can say that the orchestra is already going in the wrong direction. This should not be about power. And generally, when I have participated in discussions and they have been about power, they have been that way because someone was truly more interested in power than in art.




One of my readers, John Grabowski, pointed out this wonderful article from the Arizona Republic. I am providing the link so as to share it with you.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ae/articles/

-Henry Fogel