Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Welcome to my world, FWIW...

My very first blog entry: feeling excited, nervous and a bit late to the game. Does anyone really care what I think? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, I've done the Facebook thing, the LinkedIn thing, even the Twitter thing (though I'm THIS close to jumping off the back of that bandwagon, despite my paying for Twitterific for my iPhone)...now it's blog-time.


Read a very interesting entry in Greg Sandow's blog this morning regarding the decline of classical music audiences (the full post can be read here: http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2009/06/dire_data.html).


As I work in the sector, I always read these posts with interest and often find myself asking more questions than the blog posts answer.


In this case the bigger question for me is, as classical music becomes more and more of a niche market, has the traditional symphony operating model become totally obsolete? Too large halls, too high ticket prices, too many performances throughout the year, too constricted union contracts (not to slam the unions, just my personal opinion), too limited funding opportunities, too many staff (sorry, again, personal opinion – and many of my friends are vital staffers within said organizations, so please keep them employed).


Personally, I think it has, but how does one truly “blow it up and start over?” And how do they do it with the blessing of their board of trustees who typically hire them to keep things moving along smoothly? See...more questions. Some food for thought on a Tuesday morning.


Future blog posts will run the gamut from personal items (tomorrow's trip to the Zoo for my nephew's first birthday, for example) to GLBT issues (after all, I am an out and proud gay Cincinnatian) and much more on the arts and culture front (since it consumes my days and, sometimes, my evenings). Thanks for reading. My two-cents, fwiw. (fwiw = for what it's worth!)

1 comment:

  1. Oooooo, I can't wait to read more.

    Thanks for letting me know you're here.

    -Kevin

    ReplyDelete