National Conference Luncheon
Friday June 13, 2008

League Vice President and Managing Director Jesse Rosen
Luncheon Address

Following an introduction and speech by Henry Fogel



Watch the speech (Streaming)

(Photos below: Mark T. Osler/PJeye.com)

Thank you, Henry.

So many of us have benefited from Henry’s wisdom. I’ve known Henry for over 25 years. And, like most of you, it was mostly from afar. He was always available and supportive, but usually at the other end of a telephone. When Henry came to the League as President and CEO, he moved into the office right next to mine and I thought, “This will be amazing. Now I’m going to get him all to myself, and whenever I want.” The truth is, I never saw him. He was always on the road, helping you!

Seriously, though, Henry has been a wonderful mentor. After spending five terrific years working at his side, I feel ready to follow him as the League’s president.

So thank you, Henry!

Never before have so many superb musicians performed for so many listeners in so many fine orchestras across this country. Our youth orchestras are burgeoning, packed with talented young people. And new orchestras are coming on line all the time. Last Monday, when I finished reading all the reviews in the New York Times, I had to go back and look again: there were reviews of four brand-new orchestras, all ones I had never heard of before. They had very cool names, too, like “Alarm Will Sound” and “The Knights.” 

Yet despite these exciting developments, we must also face a sobering reality: In America today, the value that orchestras provide to society is no longer understood as a given.

A front-page article in the Times a few weeks ago noted the growing challenge to the tax-exempt status of nonprofits. That this debate is even occurring is disturbing, to say the least. And it comes at a time when, according to the latest reports, the performing arts are getting a shrinking slice of the philanthropic pie.

These issues concern everyone in this room. Some orchestras still have the capacity to thrive in their local environments and to buck these trends. But no orchestra can afford to ignore the societal and cultural fault lines that are threatening our collective ability to fulfill our mission.

As we confront this period of upheaval, the power and durability of this art form give us confidence that we will rise to these challenges. Just look at the ingenious Ford Made in America collaboration that has been pulled off by our small-budget orchestras. They vaulted an exciting new work into the repertoire—and into the public consciousness.

But many of our practices and habits are reinforcing the erroneous perception that we perform only for the so-called “limousine and tuxedo set.” And if we insist on defining our roles primarily as producing great concerts in great concert halls while our public calls for fresh approaches to arts experiences, we will be fiddling while our audience disappears.

I know I am preaching to the choir.  All of you—volunteers, staff, trustees, and musicians—are working hard to address these challenges and to adapt to this new environment.

But this new time calls for new thinking.

Some of you may remember a scene from the film Working Girl in which a character retells a story about a truck that got stuck at the entrance to New York’s Holland Tunnel. Experts tried unsuccessfully for hours to find ways to push the truck out, but it was too high for the clearance. Then a child in a passing car suggested letting some air out of the truck’s tires. And the truck rolled right out.

I am sure that truck was carrying instruments for a touring orchestra.

Like the observant child, we need to ask new questions and to create new frameworks that will enable us to get our orchestras through the tunnels and out onto the road, reaffirming and re-conceiving our connections to our communities and to our musical mission and ensuring the health of our field.

Some of us have started down that road. For example, we have seen the exciting results that innovative thinking produced for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Many of you will remember them from the session at last year’s Conference called “Radical New Revenue Models,” co-produced by Saint Paul and the Pittsburgh Symphony. This three-hour marathon session was attended by 350 delegates on a Saturday morning, when many of you are usually on your way home. It created quite a stir. The subsequent story in Symphony magazine was one of the most talked-about and reprinted in recent history.

But the real story from Saint Paul is how they achieved their results, not the results themselves. They achieved outcomes that met their specific needs. But we all have a lot to learn from their process.

Three practices enabled our colleagues to tackle old issues in new ways.

Number One: They made a serious commitment to doing the work, recognizing it could not be shoe-horned into normal work days. This meant creating the time and space to reflect and to think with fresh and open minds. This is not always easy for people in orchestras who are more comfortable in rapid-paced production mode.

Number Two: They assembled staff, musicians, and trustees in a true spirit of inquiry. This is critical to building ownership and alignment across the organization.

Number Three: They asked tough, fundamental questions, questions that prompted new possibilities, not formulaic answers. So instead of asking, “Who should be our new music director?” they asked, “What artistic assets and aspirations define us, and how do we design leadership roles to fulfill that vision?” Instead of asking, “How do we maximize earned income?” they asked, “What business are we in, and how does that relate to our mission?” Our friends in Saint Paul discovered that reframing the questions suggested new solutions.

As individual institutions and as an industry we must step back and create new frameworks for anticipating and responding to the complex challenges of our time. This is hard work. Yet there are encouraging signs that we are on the right track.

One is the clear direction that emerged from the League’s planning, on which so many of you worked with us. Together we identified three key challenges: strengthening community connections, adapting our operating and business models to be resilient and nimble, and achieving greater alignment among our constituents and stakeholders. These challenges guide us toward the important work ahead and to the questions we must ask.

As the League was doing its planning, a group of fifteen orchestras was meeting periodically in the Mellon Orchestra Forum. They came together—trustees, staff, and musicians—to consider their toughest issues. Interestingly, some of those orchestras identified challenges closely related to those that surfaced in the League’s planning: challenges about community relationships, about internal culture, financial structure, and artistic vitality. They also asked some provocative questions: What if an orchestra was to view itself as an active citizen in its community? What if it were to participate deeply and broadly in civic events, through volunteerism and through community leadership, rather than to act merely as a beneficiary of that system? And, what would it take for an orchestra to nurture the capabilities and creativity of musicians, trustees, volunteers, and staff to bring fresh ideas, energy, and perspective to their work in the orchestra?    

By coming together several times a year, these orchestras developed a tremendous capacity to discuss difficult topics. Many from the group report that the trust and understanding they created, over the decade of the forum’s life, have enabled them to talk frankly about the challenges in their own organizations and to make important progress toward addressing them.

It is time to create safe places where we can all come together to do the challenging and exciting work that will move our field forward. We at the League of American Orchestras are committed to forging those opportunities. The League can serve as a beacon for orchestras who are engaged in this work, and a partner and guide for those who are exploring it. We have the experience, the tools, and the expertise to support you. We also are building platforms to assist orchestras in accomplishing this work. Our Civic Engagement Tool that Henry just mentioned is only one recent example. Another is our series of webinars that are furnishing you with vital on-the-ground information. Nationally, the League is breaking new ground in generating critical mass for performing arts advocacy. We are the first performing arts association to partner with Independent Sector, a national coalition for nonprofits, in developing and piloting a new framework to enhance our advocacy impact on legislators.

You may have noticed that we have refreshed our League team with new faces, new accents, and new perspectives. Our dedicated staff, whose ingenuity and expertise are boundless, is working to find ways that you and we together can spark new opportunities for orchestras in America. All of us remain hopelessly in love with orchestras and most of us create or play music in some fashion. Heather Noonan, our brilliant lobbyist, is not a musician. But she had the good sense to marry one.

I would be disingenuous if I did not admit to having some apprehension about assuming this new role. Lowell has reminded me that I am now the guy with the bull’s eye on his back. But I reminded him that Henry has toughened me up. And some of you know that Henry’s predecessors who created and shaped the League also helped to mold me into a passionate orchestra professional. I was only a kid when my father became the League’s executive vice president under Helen Thompson. Since he remained active in the League throughout his career, I absorbed their stories and their values at our dinner table.

From Helen, who created one big tent where all orchestras and their constituents could find community, to Ralph Black, our orchestra zealot who never tired of spreading the gospel of symphony, to Cathy French, the League’s courageous leader through the Culture Wars, to Chuck Olton, who gave us the League’s Orchestra Leadership Academy, and of course, from Henry, I learned a crucial lesson.

They taught me that we who love orchestras can navigate through any storm as long as we keep four bright markers within our sights. Those markers are: a passion for music, the people who make it, and the people who make it possible; a lifelong commitment to learning; courage to confront tough realities; and a belief in the power of collective action.

I am counting on the passionate, committed, and courageous people in this room. You know how to get the truck to the hall by concert time.

Thank you.