Grave Digger turned artist memorializes the dead

Artist Michael Butler is catching critics eyes not just for his talent, but for the unique medium from which he creates his paintings. Butler mixes his pigments with cremated human remains in an effort to create memorializing works of art for the living. While he certainly isn't the first artist to do so, his studio is creating quite a buzz. So if you're looking to honor a loved one or pet who has passed on, an 11X17 framed work will run you about $900. Oh, consider the holiday possibilities...

 

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Ashley

YouTube video of the SoCal fires set to Shosti 10 (2nd mvt.)

This video was taken by a group of orchestra members on their way to concert as the fires in Southern California crossed the 91 freeway. It's short and intense. You should definitely check it out.

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Leslie Fay Vaeth
University of Cincinnati
MBA '09 - School of Business
MA in Arts Administration '09 - College Conservatory of Music
Director of Operations - Linton Music Series
(202) 302-7192/cell

Is another one biting the dust!?

The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is the latest large organization to feel pitch and do a little financial freaking out during this economic downtown (crisis?). But it is not just this current financial market that is causing problems. According to this LA Times article about the museum, it turns out that the museum burned through $20 million in unrestricted funds and borrow $7.5 million more from restricted accounts before the economic climate reached the current low level.

Interestingly enough, the article mentions some ideas that the management has been considering to shore up the finances - seems like none of them involve cutting costs besides the short term closure of one of its three exhibition spaces (which they rent for only $1 a year from the city). However, this does not include cutting any staff members associated with the space. Though it does say that it would shave 10% off operating costs, it doesn't mention moving any of the artwork to other spaces, either, meaning costly climate control for those works would still be maintained.

It seems as though they simply expect the public to pay up without any managerial reformatting or pledge to fix the museum up internally. Donations seem like they would just be thrown at an organization that will continue to tumble without more help that just money. The people at LA MoCA really need to start thinking more creatively than, as the article says, "Put up or shut up, now or never."

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Leslie Fay

Broadway Braces for a Squeeze

As the economy continues to suffer, many of the Broadway houses are struggling to sell tickets for the reminder of the season. However the bigger concern should be next year and the following years, according to this New York Times article. Many theatres have already sold tickets and completed much of their fundraising for this fiscal year. The real struggle for ticket sales and earned income will start to show next fall, as organizations begin to raise money for next season.

While some feel the struggling economy will have a negative affect on ticket sales, there are a handful that hope Broadway will get back to focusing on the art. There has always been a struggle between art and money, currently money wins out. Maybe this is a chance foe the balance to lean more towards the art?

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Tom

Royal Opera – Covent Garden looking into opening Manchester Branch

The Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House revealed in an interview that the organization was looking into opening a branch in Manchester, England. The northern industrial city better known for its football (aka soccer) team, Manchester United, than for classical music would be the first satellite location for the Royal Opera. Although the article mentions that multiple locations for arts organizations is not without precedence, notably the Tate Museum and the Royal Shakespeare Company, I do believe this is a new concept for a major opera company. In an age when companies are choosing to reach new audiences through new media, reaching new audiences through a new physical presence is at once old fashioned and yet also innovative and interesting. I think it's prudent that the Royal Opera is refusing to draw resources away from its established hub in London and rather looking for new funding sources. Although I am very interested how this plays out and how a multiple-location model would work for an opera company, I would hate to see this second location tarnish the quality and reputation of one of the finest opera companies in the world. 

Read the article 

--Erika

CCM Spends $4.1Million to become an "All-Steinway" school

CCM Dean Douglas Knehans has decided to plunk down $4.1 million in order to blanket CCM with brand new Steinway pianos, 165 in all, averaging $25K/per piano.  This is noteworthy not only because it is a staggering sum of money, but aren't we already facing a sizeable deficit, not to mention the current state of the economy?!!!

 

Dean Knehans is quoted as saying, "It sends a deep message about our seriousness and credibility."  That maybe so, but it also raises questions in my mind about how the CCM budget is managed and appropriated.  Speaking from personal experience, other highly respected conservatories and schools of music possess a handful of new grand pianos, and a much larger number of uprights and old grands that have been pounded on for decades.  The nicer pianos are usually reserved for graduate level pianists while the rest are free to be abused by instrumentalists and singers. These new pianos will be great for the freshman tuba player who needs a place upon which to rest a cup of coffee...and probably spill it.

 

The article mentions that this initiative was to go before board on Tuesday.  That could be today, or perhaps it was last week.  The point is, that the order was put in to Steinway & Sons, it was the  LARGEST ORDER IN THEIR HISTORY, and people are reading about it in the NY Times.  If this initiative doesn't pass, all that positive PR that the Dean was trying to create will blow up in his face....not that I think spending $4.1 million on pianos is the best way give CCM positive PR in the first place.

 

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/steinway-sons-gets-order-for-165-pianos/

 

Nate

L.A Music Center president becomes LA Opera COO

Stephen Rountree, president of the LA Music Center, will now take over as Chief Operating Officer of the LA Opera in addition to his previous job.  Since the spring of 2007, LA Opera board president, Marc I. Stern, has filled in as COO on a voluntary basis.  Due to the economic crisis, Stern, a senior officer at a global financial services company, has been forced to focus his work back to his day job.  

Rountree will now work alongside Artistic Director, Placido Domingo as co-leaders of the company. His past experience as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Getty Trust, combined with his knowledge of the Music Center, where LA Opera resides, will hopefully serve him and the company well.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2008/11/steven-rountree.html

Nate

Wally Beaver goes to the Louvre

We all might be a little too young to remember "Leave it to Beaver", but the characters and legacy are likely well known to us. Wally Beaver, AKA Tony Dow, will make his Louvre debut this December with a bronze statue entitled "Unarmed Warrior". Turns out he is multi-talented.

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Ashley

CEO for $144K? No thanks.

Okay, couldn't help but post this article about nonprofit executive salaries in San Francisco. The city is considering limiting executive salaries of city-funded NFP's to six times the salary of the organization's lowest-paid employee. I personally think this is absolutely ridiculous...on so many levels!! My frustration with the proposal turned to anger when I started to read the 100+ comments on the article. Most people seem to agree with the proposal.

The Executive Director of the San Francisco Symphony is mentioned in the article. His salary is ~$360K and he runs an organization with an operating budget of ~$55M. An organization, like the Symphony, that employees full-time staff at minimum wage (possibly janitorial staff, etc.) would have to reduce the CEO's salary to $144K. Major nonprofit organizations need to provide competitive compensation packages to attract talented, competent executive management in order to run these sophisticated operations. That is not going to be possible when executive salaries are capped at $144K. Where's the incentive?

One blogger provided interesting perspective, "Why not just hire six janitors to manage the organization?". At least then we'd see a decrease in the unemployment rate, right? You can't compare minimum wage workers with executive directors, so why should their salaries correlate?

~Mark

Ho-ho-holiday fundraisers!

Just watched this video about the Houston Ballet's Nutcracker Market happening this weekend. I must admit, my first thought was, "Ugh, another special event!". Then I watched the video and read a little about the event online. I appreciate the fact that they have been able to tie this to their annual Nutcracker presentation. Also, it certainly seems like something that a ballet's core constituency would appreciate. That said, with over 300 national and international merchants and 65,000 attendees, this must be a huge undertaking. Also, as is typical in the Houston philanthropic marketplace, they leverage the Nutcracker Market with numerous other events including a preview party, kick-off event, Christmas luncheon, brunches, "priority shopping" session, etc., all requiring heavy management utilizing both staff and volunteer resources. It is not uncommon to actually develop senior volunteer committees for all of these separate events. Is this the best use of scarce volunteer resources?

I looked for numbers on funds raised through this initiative, but was unable to find anything (that's perhaps a bad sign). I can tell you that 65,000 attendees come at $10/person, 300 merchants book space with fees starting at $800/table, over $9.1M is spent on goods of which the Ballet collects at 10% commission, and in addition, there are a number of sponsorship opportunities available securing additional revenue. Certainly seems like this could be a profitable venture considering expenses are not outrageous, which they might very well be. Let's assume the Ballet nets $2M from this program of events. Think about the human resources required to pull this off. Is this the best way for an organization to raise this money? Don't get me wrong, the answer might very well be yes. Surely there are innumerable intrinsic benefits to hosting this including increased exposure for the organization, volunteer and patron engagement opportunities, entry points for cultivating corporate sponsors for other Ballet sponsorship properties, etc. I just have to take a moment to think about the resources required to produce these mega-events and how well they actually support our organizations' programs.

I've wrote too much. Let me know what you think. Regardless of whether this is a good use of resources or not, it seems from the video that one can drink wine while perusing the merchant offerings and enjoying lively holiday music. I wish I was in Houston this weekend.

Until,
Mark

Diminishing audiences for the arts? Not according to this article.

This article brings together so many of the issues we discussed in class on Wednesday night; "popular" art vs. art of high artistic quality, integration of electronic media to attract a new generation of arts patrons, etc. Would have liked to have seen a little more exploration, but a pleasant read nonetheless.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1114/p13s01-almp.html

Interesting to note that since 1965, the number of U.S. opera companies has increased from 46 to 129. Also, opera audiences have increased by 45% in the past 20 years.

Enjoy,
Mark

Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups

I just received this link from one of my board members. It appears that if an organization wants to utilize Facebook for social networking, they should implement Facebook Pages as opposed to Facebook Groups.

http://www.thegogglesdonothing.com/archives/2008/01/facebook_groups_vs_pages.shtml

This sparked my interest as we are talking about social networking and Web 2.0. This blog compares Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. While there can be benefits to both, there is an argument for organizations to implement Facebook Pages.

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Tom

To Print or Not to Print

While other local papers are downsizing Cincinnati's arts coverage, CityBeat remains committed to providing readers with meaningful commentary on what's happening in Cincinnati's arts communities. This article reiterates that newspapers are downsizing Arts coverage is getting less and less. The reason: "a misguided sense the arts are and elite luxury of interest to only a few."

Read CityBeat Article

While CityBeat remains committed to arts coverage in print they have also turned to printing articles online. Some articles are only available online. They also have a blog, which offers recommendations for what show to see over the weekend. City Beat remains committed to arts coverage as "Cincinnati's News and Entertainment Weekly", however they also realize more and more people are finding information on the Internet and must continue to keep information up-to-date in both places.

I found this article fascinating as it directly related to some of the concepts we have been talking about in this class. As Arts Managers we need to be aware of the changing times and be willing to adapt our practices to be successful in the future. When working at Goodman this summer, part of my job was to clip coverage of the Goodman and its staff from the newspapers. As the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times were beginning to cover the arts less and less, I had to start searching their online sites and blogs. While we know this is happening, it will be interesting to see how we deal with change.


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Tom

Artistic Director Resigns after backlash from campaign donation

The artistic director, Scott Eckern, of California Musical Theater resigned after some activists called for a boycott of the theatre due to his donation to support California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in the state. I actually don't know how I feel about this. Although I don't share the same views as Mr. Eckern, and it is rather surprising to find someone who is against gay marriage in the musical theatre community, I believe Mr. Eckern has a right to his own opinion and political beliefs. He personally made the $1000 contribution as an individual, not as a part of the California Musical Theater. I believe the proposed boycott of the theatre would be an overreaction. I hardly think one individual associated with a musical theatre group is to blame for the passage of Proposition 8, nor that one employee's political stance is indicative of an official position of a whole organization. 

Read article here 

--Erika

Ticketmaster Experiments with dropping "Convenience" Fee

Irving Azoff, manager of acts like the Eagles, Neil Diamond , Guns and Roses, and Christina Aguilera, was named CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment two weeks ago.  One of his first orders of business was to eliminate the convenience fee that had traditionally been part of any ticketmaster transaction.

 

Ticketmaster is now aggressively promoting this new policy with lines like, "This is a no-fee event!  The price you see is the price you pay.  No convenience fee.  No order processing fee...etc."  Whether or not these fees are actually disappearing is uncertain.  It seems likely that they will be lumped into the face price of the ticket while giving the appearance of a discount to customers.  Either way, it displays a reaction on the behalf of Ticketmaster to combat negative consumer sentiment toward these charges.

 

http://www.gnrdaily.com/news_detail.asp?id=1768

 

Nate