Symphony Leadership: The artistic-economic dichotomy

After a brief sojourn to San Francisco in October, I am now reconnecting my thoughts of economics and the arts through my search for a position in symphony management.    Regardless of career aspirations, arts administrators need a strong foundation of management tools to govern their organizations effectively in the current economic climate.

Discussions of increasing audiences, donated revenue, and downsizing staff are common topics and strategies for weathering the economic downturn.  However, the economic challenges in symphony administration are intricately tied to a dichotomy between the financial and artistic sides of the organization, noted here as the economic-artistic dichotomy.

Issues of the artistic-economic dichotomy are expressed by Tuomas Auvinen, who notes that

“there needs to be a balance found as the organization experiences economic influences.  The accusations of financial carelessness and mismanagement easily come in when the general director has, from the critic’s point of view, misbalanced the equation in favor of the artistic production team, causing the issues of accountability and efficiency to be placed in a secondary position.  This easily leads to accusations of mismanagement and financial carelessness when, in effect, the question is about prioritizing the artistic output of the organization rather than the market-oriented expectation of financial accountability”.

Auvinen represents the complexity of the artistic process in opera with the following diagram:

From: Why Is It Difficult to Manage and Opera House? In The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society

The key players in orchestra administration are the board, staff, musicians, and conductor.   Each of these sections of the organization is a stakeholder in the success of the symphony season.  Ultimately, arts leaders must maintain the artistic mission while keeping the organization financially stable.

Scouring the latest issues of Symphony magazine for discussion of the economic-artistic tensions in symphony administration, three main issues facing symphony administrators stood out:

1. Increasing audiences and donors

2. Maintaining organizational sustainability

3. Connecting with communities

These three items will be addressed through subsequent posts.  Tactics, strategies, and schemes will be discussed. While the economic-artistic dichotomy is not named as such in publications of symphony management, the concept permeates orchestra administration through programming and artistic constraints. 

Despite certain challenges, the current economic crisis is encouraging symphonies to experiment with marketing and programming in new ways.   Symphony managers must approach the crisis with forward-thinking attitudes.  New visions and organizational approaches may evolve through a collaborative effort to ensure the growth of individual orchestras and the field as a whole.

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