There have been a large number of stories about ‘flash mobs’ recently (here’s one from the Philadelphia Inquirer, another in Canada, and one from across the pond in the EU). If you want more, check out this Google News search on the subject. A flash mob is a sudden gathering of strangers, usually drawn together […]

I’m off-line most of today (and possibly tomorrow), so I’ll point you instead to a great interchange that’s happening among two other blogs in my neighborhood. Both Greg Sandow and Terry Teachout reference an Opera News piece about the bleak future of opera on PBS, and both have a different take. Here’s Sandow’s perspective: What […]

There’s yet another study (login with username: ‘ajreader’ and password: ‘access’), this time in Minnesota, on the economic value of the arts in a local economy. The ‘great cities’ class of justification for public art support (that great cities have arts, and lame cities do not), is just the latest in a long line of […]

Time for a little housecleaning on this weblog, namely posting some of the responses I’ve received about previous posts. Thanks to all of you for your comments and notes, and if others have a thought, link, article, or complaint about the topic of arts management, please send them along to me. Drew McManus took some […]

Friend and arts manager Mark Nerenhausen in Florida sent a link to this article in The Guardian about the leadership shake-up at the Royal Shakespeare Company subtitled “Debate over business in art rages as Foy quits.” The article points to a classic struggle among boards and administrators…do we hire an artist or a businessperson to […]

Amazon.com‘s ‘associates’ program is an exceptional example of marketing through other people’s passions. For those unfamiliar with ‘associates’ or ‘referral’ programs increasingly common among savvy web companies, they allow you to refer potential customers to them, and get a commission if the referral ends up with a purchase. It costs the associate nothing, comes with […]

The recent NEA report on the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (summarized in this Chicago Tribune story) receives a positive spin from the NEA (despite 9/11, arts participation stayed steady) and a gloomy spin from the Tribune (stagnant participation percentages from previous studies, same old same old audience demographics, etc.). But bundled […]

My writings and collections here will clearly have a lot to connect with fellow weblogger Greg Sandow, who’s exploring the future of classical music through frequent posts. Take a look, particularly, at his July 24 post (called ‘Snapshot’) on what some classical organizations consider to be innovation. Very frightening. Greg and I are in increasingly […]

I was off-line yesterday, attending a roundtable on the future of classical music radio up at Minnesota Public Radio (here’s a press release about the project). At the event, Alan Brown gave a fabulous overview of the study he wrote on the audience for classical music. Given the study’s findings that people connect with classical […]

Choreographer/dancer Liz Lerman has always provided a broad and engaging perspective at any professional conference I’ve seen her present. A friend (thanks Becky) recently forwarded this 2001 keynote address she gave to a performing arts educators forum (available as an Adobe Acrobat file here). I’ll just let it speak for itself: I think there was […]