A Focus on the Arts

As you may know, I was the Executive Director of a regional symphony orchestra for three years. Those three years were a lot of fun, and also incredibly stressful. I had a two hour commute each way, so that was four hours of every day in transit. Walk > Green Line > Metra > Walk. I took the job knowing that it would be a hike, but I was excited about the opportunity.

Classical music, or concert music as I like to call it, was where I found home. I loved playing in band as a kid. I used to get in trouble in school for showing up late to class because I was cleaning up gear in the band room. I eventually got myself two free periods my senior year, all of that time was spent in the band room, drumming (or also flirting with members of the clarinet section). In high school I would get in trouble for composing in class. Literally a teacher would come and take my sheet music book away because I wasn’t paying attention. Absolutely, they were right – I wasn’t really paying attention. All I wanted to do was music.

So years later, I’ve accomplished two degrees in music from wonderful institutions, and I’ve been asked if I want to take the keys to an orchestra. How could I say no? What convinced me to take the job was the players. I went to a concert before I agreed to take the job and what I heard was remarkable. This is a town of 20,000 and this orchestra was incredibly good. I wanted to be surrounded by that kind of talent and that level of musicality. It was an honor to meet and work with these musicians. I was given the opportunity to hire the entire staff. In my three years I brought on all of the staff members and six new board members who were also the youngest board members, bringing the average age from 150 to 50. 🙂

After leaving the Symphony and dealing with the many changes in my life, a global pandemic struck. It was my goal to return to focusing on my music after managing the symphony. Little did I know I would have nothing else I could do besides focus on my own music (and play Guild Wars). This pandemic has severely damaged the arts and culture sector. Many amazing artists are stuck without paychecks because performances aren’t happening.

Classical…err…concert music isn’t perfect. There is a lot of inequality – which I’ll be addressing in a coming post, but arts and culture are our humanity. There are important organizations out there like 3Arts that support artists from all backgrounds. I write all of this because the arts are important to me – all of them. They need our support, and without them, we’re just in a machine that buys and sells things (perhaps we’re already in that). Go support these amazing artists that I have had the honor to get to know. And when the world opens up after this pandemic, go to concerts, go to theater, go to the ballet. Go to everything, because if you don’t, who will?