James Agee’s family home in Knoxville, TN, c.1915.
The waning days of summer have us waxing nostalgic in the run up to our season opener, LYRICAL DREAMS — Sunday, September 24th at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek. All three pieces on the program — Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Stookey YTTE (Yield To Total Elation) and Mahler Symphony №4 — are linked in that they were either inspired by dreams or they use dreams as subject matter. What may be less obvious is the link that two of the pieces share specifically to the year 1915.
The connection is clear for Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, based on a dreamy meditation on family life by 1940s film critic and screenplay writer James Agee. Written more than twenty years later as a free-form writing experiment and with little subsequent revision, Agee describes the sights and sounds of small town Knoxville, TN, as a 5-year-old child, lying on quilts with his family outside their home in 1915. He hears the clip-clopping of a horse and buggy; the grinding, metallic sounds of a tram; the locusts in the field; the low voices of adults in conversation. The timing is especially poignant as we know that Agee’s father was killed in an auto-accident the following year.
Drawings from A.G. Rizzoli’s Yield To Total Elation collection, featuring friends and family as fantastic buildings in a grand, imaginary “expeau.”
Over on the West Coast, 1915 was the year of the great San Francisco Expo, which brought a vision of a fantastic, optimistic future to a young city that had been ravaged by fire and earthquakes less than a decade earlier. The experience of visiting the World Fair clearly made a big impression on Mill Valley native, A.G. Rizzoli (1896~1981). Some twenty years later, Rizzoli would draw the Yield To Total Elation set of architectural drawings, in which he portrayed friends and family as grand buildings in an imaginary “expeau.” This would in turn inspire Bay Area composer Nathaniel Stookey to create his 2016 piece, YTTE (Yield to Total Elation), whichmakes its West Coast full orchestra version premiere in our season opener in Walnut Creek on Sunday, September 24, 2017.
Connections to the Past
Learning about these connections inspired us to look back to what else would have been happening in the Bay Area in 1915, in a year that was so memorable to these two artists from a century ago.
1915 in San Francisco
The Tower of Jewels attraction at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco
One can only imagine Bay Area residents’ wonder and excitement at some of the sights and sounds of the World Fair, which included:
· A car assembly line —Henry Ford brought his revolutionary production line to the Expo, turning out a new car every 10 minutes which was then driven away to a local distributor for resale.
· Flying machines — In 1915, most Americans had still never seen an airplane. Thanks to brothers and aviation pioneers Allan and Malcolm Loughead (who later changed their last name to “Lockheed”), visitors were able to take brief flights out over the bay, to get a perspective on their city previously only enjoyed by the birds. Stunt pilot Lincoln Beachey entertained crowds with death spirals and loops over the Bay until his plane fatally crashed in March. His replacement, Art Smith, also had a taste for the dramatic, performing nighttime flights with phosphorous flares attached to his plane’s wings, which left trails that lit up the sky.
· The Palace of Fine Arts — housed more than 11,000 pieces of art during the Expo. While all the other buildings were torn down after the fair concluded in December that year, the Palace of Fine Arts was saved and rebuilt in the 1960s after the mother of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst intervened to restore it.
The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
· The Tower of Jewels in the Jewel City — the centerpiece of the Expo and surely the building that must have most excited would-be architectural draftsman and artist, A.G. Rizolli. The 43-story tall Tower of Jewels was the tallest structure in San Francisco at the time. Adorned with more than 100,000 pieces of polished crystal and colored glass that glimmered in the sunlight, it must have been quite the sight for visitors and residents.
1915 in the East Bay
Meanwhile across the bay…
Walnut Creek, population 500, became the 8th city to be incorporated in Contra Costa County in 1914. The library would be built in 1916, thanks to a grant from the Carnegie Library Foundation, and a sewer was installed on Main Street two years later. Residents would have to wait until 1921 before downtown was paved.
Walnut Creek Library in 1916.
Broadway Tunnel
Think your commute is bad? According to the Lafayette Historical Society, this predecessor to the Caldecott Tunnel was the first tunnel to Oakland through the hills. The tunnel was so narrow that vehicles had to drive down the center of the road to avoid hitting the sides. It was also dark, so drivers would light up newspapers when entering as a signal to those at the other end to wait. In 1915, the tunnel ceiling was raised three feet so autos and trucks could fit.
New Words in 1915
Sadly, Expo stunt pilot Lincoln Beach would not have lived long enough to learn that the word “aerobatics” made it into the Merriam Webster Dictionary in 1915. Other new words from the year that hint at the seisimic social and technological changes taking place include: big deal, car wash, coatrack, coolant, Federal Reserve System, and yo-yo.
Some of the words that made it into the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 1915.
The Power of the Past
In conclusion, it’s dizzying to reflect on how much life has changed in the century since 1915 — for many people, that’s just 2 or 3 generations ago. What will the Bay Area look like in 2115? And will the people of that time look back on our time and wonder at our primitive lives?
James Agee and A.G. Rizzoli were two artists who respectively wrote and drew from memories from a common point in time. For Agee, Knoxville in the summer of 1915 was an idyllic time of family life remembered a short time before the devastating death of his father. For Rizzoli, the 1915 Expo was a feast for his design sensibilities, which he channeled some twenty years later into his YTTE drawings. In another sad parallel, Agee and Rizzoli both lost their fathers in 1916 — Rizzoli’s father to suicide — and through their works, both artists honored and remembered their families. Composers Samuel Barber and Nathaniel Stookey were subsequently inspired to interpret and translate these works of art into a new form — to give them new dimension through the medium of classical music. Literally, to amplify them.
The power of nostalgia and memory as a creative impetus for art is undeniable, as is its ability to resonate with composers and audiences through the years. It still has the ability to move us a century later.
Soprano Maria Valdes sings Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, with text by James Agee, with the California Symphony at our season opener in Walnut Creek on Sunday, September 24, 2017. (She performs it here in November of 2016 with the Kaleidescope Chamber Orchestra.)
LYRICAL DREAMS is at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek on Sunday September 24 at 4pm and includes:
Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Stookey YTTE (Yield To Total Elation)
Mahler Symphony №4
Tickets are available at 925.943.SHOW and CaliforniaSymphony.org. Prices start at just $33 per concert.
ABOUT CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired Sound Minds program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA. The initiative brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
The weirdly named star of our 2017–18 Season Opener’s YTTE (Yield To Total Elation) by Nathaniel Stookey is a one-of-kind, electro-acoustic instrument created by San Francisco-based Grammy-nominated audio engineer and kinetic sculptor, Oliver DiCicco has designed, with whimsical names like “Crawdad” and “Olivetti.”
The OOVE, created by Oliver DiCicco and played at our Season Opener by composer Nathaniel Stookey in YTTE (Yield To Total Elation).
As for the OOVE, when composer Nathaniel Stookey first came across the instrument, he imagined the name came from the Latin for egg, ovum, “because it sounds sort of primoridal. And it ended up being the egg of the piece in a way — the thing that everything else grows out of.”
But no, DiCicco informed him: It’s because side-on, it looks like a HOOVER upright vacuum cleaner.
Composer Nathaniel Stookey — who also plays the instrument at our Season Opener — explains that the sound is generated not by plucking or bowing. “It’s not really even really touched. You approach it with an electromagnet, and as the magnet gets closer to the field created by the nodes (towards the bottom of the instrument), it sets the string vibrating.” Pitch is shifted using small sliders on the four strings. As the magnet gets closer to and further from the instrument, the sound becomes louder or softer.
Music Director Donato Cabrera likens the instrument to early 20th century experiments in sound like the Theremin — which will forever be associated with the theme from iconic 60’s TV series, Star Trek, “Approaching an electromagnetic field, in the disturbance of something entering the field, sound is created. It’s the same concept.”
Only the OOVE generates a richly layered texture of sounds rather than a single pitch.
“This instrument has that idea of yielding to total elation,” continues Cabrera, “because it’s all sound at once. It’s not so much an instrument like you might think of today, like a violin or a French horn or a piano that creates discreet, individual pitches. It creates this ambiance from which sound can emerge, and that yielding to this total soundscape is what is so inspiring in this piece.”
“Playing the OOVE is an amazing experience for me,” says Stookey, “because its sound is both giving rise to the music of the orchestra and allowing me to respond to that music in real time, in a way that is different with each performance. It can be pretty intense for all concerned, especially towards the end, where the score offers only four words of advice:
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, which brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
Margaret Martin with her brother Gregory, after opening night of the Lamplighters’ “Yeomen of the Guard” in the Lesher Center this summer.
We were delighted to learn that the winner of our Symphony Surround auction package to meet incoming composer-in-residence Katherine Balch, is an aspiring composer in her own right!
Margaret’s mom spotted the auction package — a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shadow Katherine as she prepares to deliver like a broken clock, her first commission for the California Symphony — and instantly knew it would be a wonderful 16th birthday gift for her daughter.
Music has always been a passion for Margaret, who is entering her junior year at SF University High School this year. She has sung with the San Francisco Girls Chorus for 10 years, and she is a member of the Lamplighters Music Theater company. Her interest in composing was piqued by a music class she took at school last year. After learning about fugues, she thought to herself, “Why not write one?” And so she did. Composing has been a focus for the Berkeley native since then.
Here’s her composition breathe, which premiered at the San Francisco Conservatory on July 14 this year. The piece is part of a planned series that explores the theme of mental health, including depression and anxiety. Margaret explains that the lower case title relates to the “small voice” her mother says she gets when she gets stressed out.
(Also of note, the video features California Symphony principal oboist, Laura Reynolds, who coordinates the SFCM’s summer camp which Margaret attended.)
So from all of us at the California Symphony, Happy 16th Birthday, Margaret! So much achieved already, and so much more to come, we’re sure!
We can’t wait to see you again when you get to meet Katherine Balch in January. We are certain you’ll have a lot to talk about.
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired Sound Minds program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA. The initiative brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
Here’s our press release with everything you need to know about our 2017–18 season opener LYRICAL DREAMS, which features a modern day classic by American composer Samuel Barber, and a whimsical new instrument played by Bay Area composer Nathaniel Stookey (it bears some resemblence to a vacuum cleaner!) The program concludes with an epic masterpiece by Mahler — a composer rarely performed in the Bay Area outside of the San Francisco Symphony due to the grand scale and complexity of his works. At the California Symphony, we haven’t tackled Mahler in nearly 20 years!
The concert takes place at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, Sunday, September 24th at 4:00PM. Click on the link for full details.
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired, “Sound Minds” program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, which brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
Three years ago, the California Symphony changed its approach to audience development, employing a long-term strategy that resulted in increased concert attendance, audiences getting younger, and more donors.
The problems in the orchestra world of declining audiences, aging audiences, and audience turnover have been well articulated, belabored even. In response to these problems, we as a field often talk a lot about incremental gains and successes such as an orchestra that sold 5% more tickets than last year or trimmed expenses enough to balance the budget. Make no mistake, these are big successes under the current model, but when we know as an industry that our fixed costs will continue to rise and outpace the operational tweaks and incremental revenue gains we can achieve, the model needs to be reexamined. This is a post about solutions.
To give away the end of this story, over the last three years, after a calculated change in approach to audience development strategy, the California Symphony has seen profoundly different results from the national trends for orchestras:
Through reconstructing a new audience development strategy, in addition to the results above, the California Symphony grew its operating budget by 40% over this time period and ended this last fiscal year with a 10% surplus.
This post discusses first what the current/typical audience development model looks like, followed by reasons why organizations do it this way (spoiler alert: there is a long list of explanations in support of the traditional approach, which are barriers to change for many organizations), and ending with counter points on how and why changing the model is worth it, namely because there is big money on the table, which in turn allows us to better serve our mission.
Arts organizations have a lot to offer to our patrons, which is why when a first time attendee comes to a concert, what ensues is essentially a marketing and development free-for-all: that person goes right into all our campaign mailings for subscriptions (“New blood! They came once so they must be willing to at least consider season tickets!”), right to the phone room for telefunding (“They clearly like us enough to attend, so they might be willing to make to a modest donation!”), into all the single ticket marketing efforts like email and online ads (“They completed a purchase on our website, so we are smart and savvy and have that tracking cookie showing them ads everywhere now!”), and into pretty much every direct mail solicitation for single tickets or for donation appeals (“Recent attendance is a great indicator of future engagement!”). That’s a lot of offers and messages…and by a lot I mean a deluge. Then, this same free-for-all takes place again if that person becomes a repeat attendee (“Now they really must be interested in us!”). Then all again if someone takes a chance on a season ticket package, large or small (“They drank the Kool-Aid! They obviously must want to consider donating now!!”). At some point around the time someone becomes a renewing donor or major donor, we sort of get our act together and often have a pretty clear path of next steps for cultivation and stewardship.
The audience development free-for-all model that is the current approach for most arts organizations.
To a degree, the current model works. Organizations do make money, and a lot of it, this way. But when 90% of first time buyers don’t come back — a well-documented national stat from Oliver Wyman’s “Churn Study,” made famous by former head of marketing at the Kennedy Center and later Vice President of the League of American Orchestras Jack McAuliffe — this is a problem. And when first year subscribers — a critical group because we know that being a subscriber is the number one indicator of future donation proclivity — are the hardest segment to renew, averaging a 50% or less renewal rate for many organizations, that’s a problem. It’s a giant pipeline problem we have created for ourselves.
In short, the California Symphony decided we would do everything we can to create a flowing pipeline. For us, this meant calculated changes to the approach described above, shifting to a strategy focused on patron retention. Now, no matter who you are, whether a first time attendee, or repeat buyer, or new subscriber, or long time donor, or anywhere in between, we have a specific plan for you and a specific next step in mind, and everything we do points you toward that one next step and nothing else. Equally important to what we do now is what we don’t do now, that is to say we do not solicit a donation before a patron is a second year subscriber. (This is usually when jaws drop.) The new approach is a long-term, disciplined strategy, and one that has proven lucrative for us: we’ve grown our audience by a sizable 70% over the last three years — having to add concerts to keep up with the demand — and have nearly quadrupled the number of donor households. We completely reconstructed how we do audience development, and we’re in it for the long haul.
The traditional audience development model versus the model the California Symphony reconstructed three years ago, offering one next step (and only one) to every audience segment in order to maximize revenue over time. Most arts organizations state they would like to see this type of logical customer progression, but almost none deliberately limit the next step offered to each customer segment.
In the latest issue of Symphony magazine (summer 2017), The League of American Orchestras said it best: “Surely, if the military is learning how to become flexible and adapt, orchestras can as well. To do so, they need constantly updated sets of tools and assumptions.” That’s exactly what this is all about.
Earlier this summer, I spoke on this topic — the idea of a focused and strategic audience journey — on a panel at a conference for NPR and public media marketing and development professionals, and during Q&A someone raised their hand and said to me, “Your industry is SO LUCKY to have this research [like the “Churn Study” mentioned above] …so why isn’t everyone doing what you’re doing?” The answer is because change can feel risky, and it turns out, there are several genuine reasons why organizations feel the risk and are reluctant to divert from the traditional model:
1. Revenue attached to old ways. Again, organizations do make money the current way. Some people do subscribe after attending one or two performances, and some people do make a donation when they’re called. And when we are dealing with a pipeline problem, it can be painful to purposefully limit that pipeline at first, such as when you’re pulling a list for a direct mail appeal — let’s say for a fiscal year end campaign when all the low hanging fruit for donations has already made their annual gift — and you know how many more people you could add to that mailing list if you pull recent single ticket buyers. It’s tempting to add those people to the prospect list because some will respond, and those moments make it hard to think about how we’re contributing to that 90% no-return rate because we’re making the wrong ask too soon.
2. Wrong metrics. Another reason change feels risky is because we often measure the wrong things. A bigger database is not the right metric, as an example. Bigger databases do not implicitly mean we are serving more people; a bigger database often means we serve a lot of people once, and that’s bad when our jobs are to cultivate loyal lovers of our art form. In the example above, a larger mailing list is the wrong measure. Looking at the response rate would be a healthier gauge of success (more on that below). Bigger is not always better, and bigger is almost always more expensive (more on that below as well).
3. Short term emphasis. True especially post recession, there is incredible pressure to run our organizations with short-term outcomes. When I was first brought in to the California Symphony to lead a financial turnaround in 2014, one major institutional funder said to me that if we did not immediately have balanced budgets for the next two years, consecutively, then they would pull their funding. And they said this knowing the organization was in crisis and knowing I was implementing a three-year turnaround plan (largely built on the audience journey strategy outlined herein); nonetheless, the directive was firmly to balance the budget in one year. (Side note: we did it, but talk about pressure to NOT take a long-term approach to sustainability!) I pick on that one funder, but the truth is nonprofit leaders see that kind of pressure a lot. Not just from funders, but from watchdog organizations like CharityWatch and GiveWell, etc. And from our boards as well. When the budget does not balance, how often does the board want plans and ideas that promise a quick fix? By the way, if there truly was a quick fix (besides cuts, which are the epitome of a short-sighted solution), wouldn’t we all have implemented that fix a long time ago? The short term pressure is real.
4. No culture for failure. This stems straight from the point above. We all have lean budgets with little to no room for any experimentation to try new things. This isn’t because no one wants to experiment, or find a new model that we all know we need, it’s because we usually must have every penny go toward everything else we’ve committed to do as an organization. We all have top notch artists, quality programming, and education initiatives that make a difference. Failure to fund on any one of these fronts because an experiment did not result in a profitable outcome in its first iteration is not an option. As arts organizations, we need money in an organizational culture with no real appetite for failure — or innovation, or even delayed gratification — because a lot of us simply cannot afford to have a miss.
5. Don’t know how to do it differently. Having siloed departments — particularly siloed marketing and development departments — and a focus on acquisition (both patron and donor acquisition) make it so that our staffs don’t always intuitively know how to do work a different way. We are taught that acquisition is key, and in a broken system, it is, because we have to fill the declining audience and short-term revenue voids somehow. We are taught, in different words, to treat new patrons like a land grab. “Who ‘owns’ those names?” we ask when trying to figure out a way for marketing and development to play in the sandbox together, when the reality is that’s the least customer-centric question we could be asking. Patty McCord, who served for many years as Chief Talent Officer at Netflix, recently said (on the FRICTION podcast with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton) about maintaining a customer-focused culture, “Siloes are just gonna slow you down…Companies that are really, truly successful are collaborative and solving for the customer, and you can’t solve for the customer in siloes. You can’t do it.” As an industry whole, we sort of know only one way to do audience development and don’t really know how to do it any differently.
6. Don’t have the discipline. Maybe this is in the category of “Don’t know how to do it differently,” or maybe it points back to an emphasis on short term revenue, or even not having a culture for failure. Back to the example of wanting to run that fiscal year end appeal mailing list, when we first instituted this new strategy, we could have mailed to twice as many people if we had included recent single ticket buyers, and we all know that some of those people would have made a donation. In a time when we were digging ourselves out of the ditch financially, it was incredibly difficult to have the discipline to say, “No, now is not the right time to be making a donation ask of this group. Instead, we will wait until people from this group are renewing subscribers when we know they are times over more likely to respond, give more, and ultimately renew that gift. We’re vying for a higher lifetime value of these patrons.” Also, having discipline takes time, and that’s a currency we don’t really have, which brings us to last reason we keep doing things the current way.
7. Don’t have time. We often don’t have time in two different ways: 1) no time to wait for results of a longer term strategy, and 2) no time in the work day to even think about changing the status quo. To the former, it takes a while for the full process of having a first time attendee come back as a repeat buyer, then get converted to a season ticket holder, and then to renew that subscription, and then finally to have the chance to solicit them for a donation. For the marketing folks, those first few steps from new attendee to subscriber can happen in a year or so if all goes according to plan (which when you are disciplined, it does nicely play out that way more often, but I’m getting ahead of myself). For development folks, however, that’s at least two years of patiently waiting to get their hands on those prospects, which is very different than the current approach. To the later point, changing the approach means time in the day is spent differently — not adding more to the plate (which feels impossible at times), but mixing up that plate a bit.
So when that person at the public media conference asked why everyone isn’t doing things differently like the California Symphony, I actually laughed a little. “You think public radio is slow to change?” I said, “NPR is not even 50 years old. Try working for an orchestra — we’re working against centuries here!”
There may be revenue attached to old ways, but there is way, way, wayyyy more revenue attached to a disciplined, strategic approach. Through shifting our focus from patron acquisition to patron retention, the California Symphony has grown performance revenue by 145% over the last three years. That’s while increasing both single ticket and subscription sales. By comparison, the national average is 4% growth in performance revenue with subscription revenue on the decline (source: League of American Orchestras “Orchestra Facts” report, 2016). Yes, that’s insane. Lest anyone think this is through price increases alone, total subscriber households have grown by 37% over this same time period compared to the national average of 18%. Oh, and our prices have held flat the last two of those three years, except for dynamic pricing on single tickets, which when performances are consistently selling out as they are now, you better believe those last minute buyers are paying a pretty penny because supply is scarce and they didn’t plan ahead. We’re not talking about Hamilton tickets here; we’re talking about an orchestra defying the national trends for the industry by smartly responding to the ample research available to us.
Contributed revenue follows suit despite us actually soliciting fewer people than before. In fact, the California Symphony’s percentage of subscribers who also donate actually surpasses the national average: 28% nationally versus 52% here. If we take out first year subscribers from that count since we don’t solicit that group, this means 71% of all season ticket holders who are asked make a donation — two and a half times the national average. Total contributed revenue has grown 41% for us (national average is 20%) in conjunction with nearly quadrupling the number of donor households. One last data point: after adjusting for inflation, the national average for total income growth 2010–2014 is 5%; yet from 2014–2017 and also adjusted for inflation, the California Symphony has grown total income by nearly seven times that at 34%.
It’s worth mentioning that we’ve realized expense savings, too. Now that virtually every mailing list for marketing and fundraising appeals is smaller and more targeted, it simply costs less. We now put that money toward other things, like talent development and innovative programming.
If the wrong metrics are things like the size of our database and how many new names we’ve added to our list trades, then metrics that reflect how the audience is engaging with us and responding to our work are the right ones. In other words, metrics that measure retention and loyalty matter. If attending our organization is a bucket list item for people — meaning they come once and check us off the list — we’ve done something very wrong. And for 90% of new visitors nationwide, this is exactly what’s happening. Who cares if the database is gigantic if none of those people have any future value to us, especially when all the research shows that converting a customer to a second/repeat visit within 12 months of their first experience makes their lifetime value skyrocket. While lifetime value of a patron is incredibly difficult to measure with most CRMs, we can measure 3-year value or 5-year value of patrons who’ve gone through the old model vs the new model…which is very telling. Or in its very simplest form, we can measure annual patron revenue and associated expenses when the focus is acquisition versus patron revenue and associated expenses when the focus is retention.
People often ask how we have achieved the financial results that so dramatically outpace our peers, and the answer we give is that we’re playing a long term game. We may have said no to some short-term revenue in year one of this transition, but by year two we were seeing across-the-board growth, and now long-term results heading into year four of this strategy are undeniably counter to the trends at most orchestras. When our organizations have such an over-reliance and emphasis on short-term revenue, admittedly the most difficult, risky feeling part is at the beginning. The opposite is also true though: doing it this way — this long term, disciplined, strategic way — feels really right and really smart, and the revenue follows. Our art form matters too much to not be in it for the long haul.
This is easier said than done, but it can and must be done, and it does actually get easier. Going back to that foundation’s mandate to go from years of big shortfalls to a balanced budget in one season, we did it by recalibrating how we spend our money per this reconstructed plan, and that year the budget was indeed pretty lean. But by year two of the new model, the organization had built into the budget several new programmatic experiments. Yes, we actually had risk capital by year two. In year three (this past season), we ended the fiscal year with a 10% surplus and paid off/eliminated a portion of the organization’s accumulated deficit. In year four (the upcoming season), we have the most conservative budget we’ve passed yet and it includes another 10% surplus which will further eliminate deficit as well as pay for a feasibility study to grow our endowment (i.e. which would result in another expanded revenue stream for the orchestra) — what a virtuous cycle!
If siloes make it difficult to do this work, discipline makes it easier. “Process slows you down 100% of the time,” continues Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix (in the same FRICTION podcast quoted above), “But discipline can often speed you up.” At the end of the day, people want to be on a winning team, and sending the right message to the right people at the right time results in higher response rates, lower campaign expenses (marketing and development, digital and direct mail), and a lot more money to fund our mission. We’re no longer scratching our heads trying to figure out how we’re going to make the revenue goals when subscriptions are down, or stressing over who else we can add to that fiscal year end solicitation because we just need more names (side note: we didn’t even run a FYE campaign this year because we knew we were ending in the black, and instead sent a thank you mailing to all our donors…what a change of pace that was). It took us three years to get to this point, but it has worked.
If all this sounds like a lot of work, it is. It does take a lot of work to pull a report of first time attendees after every single concert, and then to send each of those people a postcard inviting them back again, and then to follow up with an email reiterating how much we’re glad to have them and reinforcing the discount offer to come back, and then sending yet another email reminder approaching the expiration date of the offer. It takes work to pull the list of multi-buyers (i.e. repeat attendees) after each concert and send all of those folks a wine voucher to add value to their next experience, or to run three different versions of the season brochure and five different versions of the renewal invoices so the right people get a tailored solicitation for a donation upgrade and the not-right-yet people don’t. But it’s different work than what we were doing the other way. We’re not running all those lists and scripts for telemarketing and telefunding, we’re not paying for all those hours of phone calls because we’re not calling most of the people we used to. We’re not running around doing tons of list trades and flash sales because our acquisition mailings need to be bigger and prices lower if we have any hope of selling those empty seats. We’re not pursuing empty corporate sponsor leads with the board, and instead building the list and file notes for board members to call and personally thank donors who gave less-than-major-gift donations because calls to this group have made a dramatic impact on renewals and particularly upgrades (which is part of the “one next step only” plan to get that segment closer to major gift territory). We cut out all that old, somewhat desperate feeling work and replaced it with work that matters over the long haul instead.
Once again, in its simplest form, this is all about pipeline and solving a pipeline problem. At that same NPR conference session on audience journey earlier this summer, the moderator said to her colleagues in the room that we need to not call the audience journey a funnel, because things drop out of a funnel. “We need to call it a pyramid,” she said, “because that’s building up. Users climb higher when our place in their lives is more indispensable.” She was so right.
An added benefit in tandem with the revenue gains the California Symphony has seen due to reconstructing the audience development model — and also a direct result of the UX work we’ve done on audience experience, which has served to strengthen that first timer foundational level of the pyramid — is that our audience is getting younger. The graphs below show that among subscribers and single ticket buyers, fewer people are in the 65+ category, about the same percentages are ages 45–64, and more people are in the under 45 crowd.
So there you have it: through a new model focusing on the customer over the long haul, an orchestra has realized an increase in subscribers, a growing single ticket buyer base, more donors, and an audience that’s getting younger. Just like the League said in that Symphony magazine article this summer, orchestras can and do adapt, and all we need is an “updated set of tools and assumptions.” I hope this post helps to do exactly that.
Aubrey Bergauer, Executive Director, California Symphony Aubrey Bergauer defies trends, and then makes her own. In a time when most arts organizations are scaling back programs, tightening budgets, and seeing declines in tickets and subscriptions, Bergauer has dramatically increased earned and contributed revenue at organizations ranging from Seattle Opera to the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival to the California Symphony. Her focus on not just engaging — but retaining — new audiences grew Seattle Opera’s BRAVO! Club (young patrons group for audience members in their 20’s and 30’s) to the largest group of its kind nationwide, led the Bumbershoot Festival to achieve an unprecedented 43% increase in revenue, and propelled the California Symphony to quadruple the size of its donor base. From growing audiences, increasing concerts, and expanding programs to instilling and achieving common goals across what are usually siloed marketing, development, and artistic departments, Bergauer is someone you want to follow — on the nationally-recognized blog she created to discuss what actually works in a changing arts landscape, and in real life, too.
A graduate of Rice University with degrees in Music Performance and Business, for the last 15 years Bergauer has used music to make the world around her better, through programs that champion social justice and equality, through ground-breaking marketing and audience development tactics on the forefront of technology, and through taking strategically calculated risks in a risk-averse field. If ideas are a dime a dozen, what separates Bergauer is her experience and record of impact and execution at institutions of all sizes. Praised for her leadership which “points the way to a new style of audience outreach,” (Wall Street Journal) and which drove the California Symphony to become “the most forward-looking music organization around.” (Mercury News) Bergauer’s ability to strategically and holistically examine and advance every facet of the organization’s mission and vision is creating a transformational change in the office, on the stage, in the audience, in the community, and going well beyond the industry of classical music.
Originally published at medium.com on August 14, 2017.
In case you missed it, here’s a round up of happenings at the California Symphony, including news of some fine new additions to the orchestra; a behind-the-scenes encounter between a local high school student and our Composer-in-Residence at the May finale concert, and exciting new grants awarded to us in support of the Sound Minds music education initiative.
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, which brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
Inquiring minds check out our instrument petting zoo at the Chevron Family Theatre Day in Walnut Creek, July 15 2017.
Princesses, pirates, and patient parents, flocked to the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek to bring smiles to children’s faces at the Chevron Family Theatre Festival one sunny Saturday in July. Costumed characters, including Darth Vader, ewoks, Stormtroopers, classic Disney princesses, Disney villains paraded and performed at the cornered off block outside the Lesher Center.
The California Symphony was also there with a booth that included an instrument petting zoo, consisting of a 1/16 size violin for the little ones, flutes, assortment of other violins, a clarinet, percussion instruments, and more! We had a story-telling area to tell the mystery, TheComposer is Dead by Lemony Snicket, which features music by Bay-Area composer, Nathaniel Stookey. It’s a piece in the same vein as Peter and the Wolf that’s intended to introduce the different parts of the orchestra to children, and it’s also the star of our super fun, family-friendly holiday concerts in December. We also handed out magnifying glasses to help children eager solve the case.
But amidst all the excitement of their favorite costumed characters, kids still wanted to discover where the magic of music comes from. While pulling their parents arms, children jumped at the opportunity to try out the musical instruments. And the best part, the parents were happy to support their children in developing an appreciation for the arts.
Over a thousand people came by the booth in the blazing 96-degree heat that day — not sure how the Stormtroopers and Darth Vader survived — but a huge thank you to our volunteers, including members of the Alliance! They brought smiles and specialized attention to hundreds of kids that day. Through story-telling and mini music lessons, they sparked a musical interest that could last for years and potentially a lifetime. Thanks again to everybody who came by!
ABOUT CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, which brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
Sound Minds student Carlos — as a first grader with his paper replica cello; in fourth grade, and (far right of picture) as a proud fifth grade, sunglasses-wearing, graduate of the program in May 2017.
While the California Symphony celebrated its 30th anniversary last season, Sound Minds completed a milestone of its own. It’s now six years since the symphony’s El Sistema-inspired program was started, and the very first students who started the program in first grade back in 2010 are moving on to middle school this fall.
Access, Opportunity and Inspiration
Beyond the benefits of music study and its proven impact on test scores, Sound Minds creates opportunities otherwise not afforded to these kids. Simply put, it encourages them to think and to dream bigger, and the results can be life-changing.
One student we’ve had the opportunity to watch grow through the years is Carlos. Carlos has been a poster child for Sound Minds since he started with the pilot program in first grade. At an emotional graduation ceremony in June, unprompted, Carlos stood up to thank his Sound Minds teachers and friends for encouraging him to carry on when he had thought about giving up. His maturity and confidence in addressing the audience was remarkable.
“Thank you for believing in me when I couldn’t believe in myself” — Carlos, 11 years old, studying cello for 6 years through Sound Minds.
“It’s a powerful testament to the leadership and life skills that students like Carlo are absorbing and developing along with the music,” says California Symphony Executive Director Aubrey Bergauer.
What’s Next?
For this graduating class, Operations and Education Director Sunshine Deffner has developed a new partnership with the East Bay Center for Performing Arts so the students may continue their studies through the Center’s highly competitive Young Artist Diploma Program.
And in September, we will welcome a new group of recruits to the program, who will first make paper versions of their instruments on which to learn strings notes and proper instrument care. Then, with awe and wonder, they will get to hold their actual instruments for the very first time and take their first steps on what we hope will be a lifelong journey, enriched by music.
Sound Minds Fast Facts
· Sound Minds provides two hours of intensive music theory & instruction three days a week throughout the school year, at no cost to participants.
· Sound Minds students test 4x higher in math proficiency and 2x in reading compared with non-participants.
· Based on El Sistema principles which seek to effect social change through intensive music study and the ambitious pursuit of musical excellence. El Sistema focuses primarily on children with the fewest resources and greatest need.
Want to get involved in Sound Minds?
Email us at info@californiasymphony.org or call 925 280 2490 to join us for a site visit to meet the students and Sound Minds teachers.
ABOUT CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, which brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
Hello and welcome to the first post on the all-new California Symphony blog!
Music Director Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony perform at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek.
We should probably stop right there and explain that while this is a new blog account, the symphony has had a blog presence for just over a year. That content still exists and you’ll find links to the old posts on our new profile, however going forward, it will now be badged under its rightful owner, Executive Director Aubrey Bergauer.
Why the switch?
Previously, the blog was focused on the business of running an orchestra and efforts by the California Symphony to buck the trends impacting orchestras and many other arts organizations across the country. — Challenges like how to appeal to a younger demographic, and how to program concerts in a way that is appealing to audiences, that maintains artistic integrity, but which is also rooted in commercial reality. As such, it has been a staple among industry peers and occasionally garnered the interest of local and national media — including the Wall Street Journal.
We still believe in the value of these posts and we’ll continue to share them. However, the vision for this newly relaunched blog is that it should cater to our patrons. We have an active presence on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) — which will also be revamped as we roll out our new content strategy — but there are times when you simply can’t adequately tell a story through a photograph or using 140 characters. The new blog will therefore enable us to go deeper into the work we do and the lives we touch, and to share behind the scenes insights that no one outside the staff usually gets to hear about.
And we really do have some wonderful stories to share! Like the time that a fifth grade student from Downer Elementary School got to be Assistant Orchestra Manager for the day; the exciting and energizing side-by-side rehearsal that our San Pablo Sound Minds kids did with their Dougherty Valley high school mentors and pen pals; the time that one high school senior and aspiring composer was invited to shadow Composer-in-Residence Dan Visconti for the world premiere of Tangle Eye, and so much more…
These and other stories will be coming to the blog soon, so don’t forget to follow California Symphony so you don’t miss a post. We hope to see you back here again soon!
ABOUT CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY
The California Symphony, now in its fifth season under the leadership of Music Director Donato Cabrera, is a world-class, professional orchestra based in Walnut Creek, in the heart of the San Francisco East Bay since 1990. Our vibrant concert series is renowned for featuring classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers. The Orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and many of its musicians have been performing with the California Symphony for nearly all its existence.
Outside of the concert hall, the symphony actively supports music education for social change through its El Sistema-inspired program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, which brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to Contra Costa County schoolchildren for free, in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program.
We also host the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which this year welcomes its first female composer, Katherine Balch.
If our job as administrators is to help audiences love our art form, why do we silo our programming and further create barriers to accessing different types of composers and music?
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to an orchestra concert with John Williams and Beethoven on the same program.
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{crickets}
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This is because generally Beethoven and John Williams are never programmed together. Beethoven is defined as core classical or masterwork repertoire and Williams is considered film music or pops. And there is some sort of unspoken rule that those two types of music are never to be on the same concert program, which is kind of crazy that they are so segregated, because at the end of the day, both composers wrote for an orchestra. Some would say that Williams (and other pops repertoire) is categorized separately because his music is not composed in the European tradition, following established principals or forms, but the same can be said of music by John Adams, Aaron Copland, Anton Webern, Leonard Bernstein, and others, and yet somehow those composers’ pieces are programmed with the masterworks. The point of this post isn’t so much to say that the way we categorize music is broken (i.e. it’s totally fine to label pieces as pops, or film scores, or light classics, or symphonic masterworks, or new music, or whatever the appropriate descriptor is), it’s to say that using those categories as sacred siloes in our programming is a disservice to our cause. In a time when a lot of orchestras, or at least a lot of music directors and artistic personnel, argue that pops (or film concerts or collaborations with Ben Folds or whatever) is the “money maker that detracts from the real music” or from “the mission,” it is possible that we as administrators are in fact creating this dichotomy, this tension, and this disparate taste in our own audiences. Because we program this way.
Music Director Donato Cabrera and I have talks about developing an audience that likes music. Not talks about one kind of audience that likes the standard repertoire and then separate conversations about new or younger audiences that like something “more accessible” or “more familiar,” but talks about developing one holistic audience that generally likes classical music and all the various and versatile forms it can take. We talk about our job being one to develop an audience that likes music, period. Following are a few examples where we have blurred the lines and broken down the typical repertoire siloes, accompanied by the results of each undertaking.
All of the following programs were part of the California Symphony’s subscription series or special event fundraisers over the last two seasons.
An All-Jazz Subscription Concert (January 2016) The infrequently performed original jazz band version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue headlined the program, along with Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs and the jazz version of Stravinsky’s Scherzo à la Russe, plus some heavy-hitting 20th century works in Milhaud’s La création du monde (Creation of the World) and Weill’s Little Three Penny Music. On this subscription program packed with modern music (read: traditionally not a big seller at the box office) and a stage filled with the banjo, electric guitar, and saxophones in addition to the rest of the orchestra, the house was full at 96% sold capacity. Side note #1: This concert provided a fantastic opportunity for a focused effort to invite our previous summer’s special event attendees to return, the fans of Postmodern Jukebox’s vintage, jazzy sound who had first been introduced to the California Symphony through our collaboration with the band six months prior. Side note #2: Notice the absence of the typical concert format of overture, concerto, symphonic work. We had never had so many core, traditional patrons and subscribers tell us they had no idea they could be so genuinely entertained at an orchestra concert…until we decided to break the mold again.
One digital ad size for an all-jazz program on the California Symphony’s subscription series that both longtime and new patrons embraced with a nearly sold-out performance.
Pops and Light Classics Special Event Program (June 2016) Shostakovich + Bizet + John Williams + Brahms + Rodgers and Hammerstein + Copland + Debussy + others = an offering of good music by good composers. Afterall, “pops” means “popular,” and there are good reasons why the works on this program are crowd pleasers. Selections from Carmen followed by the Superman theme made not for any cranky, nose thumbing stalwarts, but rather for a seriously happy group of people comprised of about half long-time, core supporters of the orchestra (read: traditional audience) and half newcomers experiencing us for the first time (people who had no preconceived notions of what an orchestra concert “should” entail). Across the board, people loved it, and we made our fundraising goals that night.
A goal to offer good music by good composers made for an intentionally mixed bag program ranging from John Williams to Johannes Brahms, and the audience loved it.
A Holiday Program with a Recent Commission (December 2016) Say what?! A new work on a holiday program?! This past season as the California Symphony celebrated its 30th anniversary, Music Director Donato Cabrera programmed a work by a past composer-in-residence on every concert. For the holiday set, this included Bright Sky by Kevin Beavers, written in 2011, at the top of the show. The piece was preceded by a video introduction sent in by Beavers from Germany where he now resides, edited to include sound clips and visuals from the score. By adding this piece to our most popular concerts of the year — the concerts that bring in more new patrons than any other — we were able to showcase our premier training program for young composers to all in attendance, giving them insight into the process for creating new work and into our mission, and setting them up to enjoy this modern piece. The program continued with Prokofiev, followed by an audience sing-along of holiday songs and Sleigh Ride. Never before have I seen an orchestra combine all these works into one program, and every performance completely sold out. Plus, almost 10% of those single ticket buyers came back to one of the next three concert sets in the season (a very solid return rate in a very short time period). Those repeat buyers are now our in our top prospect pool for new subscription sales, and that’s just from this one particular concert program.
Composer Kevin Beavers introducing his work and the poem on which it was based to the California Symphony audience. Including a recent commission on the holiday program did not alienate audiences, but rather brought them into the process of creating new music.
Fundraiser with New Music and Film (June 2017) This last example features another unlikely programming pair. For our recent special event fundraiser — the culmination of our 30th anniversary season — we booked Anne Akiko Meyers to perform the “Love Theme” from Cinema Paradiso (among other pops and film tunes), and we wanted to continue the idea of including a work by a past composer-in-residence on every program in the season. We didn’t shy away from programming new music on the biggest fundraiser of the year, and instead embraced it, putting program alumnus Mason Bates’ Attack Decay Sustain Release at the top of the show, trusting it to set the tone for the entire evening, also with a video message by Bates introducing the piece and talking about how our program helped his career. Later in the evening, when we moved into the live auction and raise-the-paddle portion of the event, we auctioned off a dinner with Bates, which sold for over $4000. Then when Anne Akiko Meyers made remarks to set up our fund-a-need appeal, she was able to talk about working with Bates on his violin concerto (also new/modern music, of course), and how that collaboration was so important to the art form and to her personally. Paired with pops, we used new music and turned into a fundraising gold mine. How many orchestras are doing that? Not enough.
Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers speaking to California Symphony event attendees about her time performing with the California Symphony as a young artist, and about her work with composer-in-residence program alumnus Mason Bates.
All of these concerts were incredibly well received, and not one patron said, “Why did you program the pops with the classical?”
So how do you build an audience that likes (all) classical music? Be strategic about why, how, and when you program:
Be strategic about WHY you program. If you want to develop an audience that likes a variety of good music, then program a variety of good music. It’s not rocket science really, and there are simply people out there who like Beethoven and John Williams. A lot of them in fact. Also, people don’t always know what they like. They certainly think they do oftentimes, but consider the story of when the iPhone first came out: no one in focus groups thought they wanted, much less needed, this newfangled device. Or until Henry Ford created the automobile, people thought they wanted faster horses. People don’t always know what they like or want, and part of the why we program is to be tastemakers. A few months back, California Symphony Music Director Donato Cabrera said it best on Facebook (shared here with permission), “My long held belief is that it’s impossible and pointless to program a concert or a season based on what one thinks an audience might like. Be a cultural contributor (leader), rather than a cultural follower!” So to all the music directors and artistic personnel reading this, fulfill your artistic goals! Program multiple styles and multiple composers! Schedule works that haven’t been done (a lot or at all)! Do this not as the Lone Ranger though, but in strong partnership with the executive director. Which leads to the next point.
Be strategic about HOW you program. Our job as administrators is to proliferate and propagate the art form, so let’s be smart about this. We’re not putting the all-Schoenberg concert on our season anytime soon, because how we program matters. Research shows that people like what’s familiar to them, which is why the masterworks of the repertoire — and music from our favorite films — are well loved. We have a duty to help people enjoy those works that are so adored, in addition to a duty to help those same people understand and appreciate, if not love just as much, other types of classical music too. So mix it up, put varying degrees of familiarity together, but also do those introductory videos, and/or write really interesting (not boring) program notes, and/or have maestro speak from the podium. One of my favorite moments this season was when Donato introduced from the stage a work by Christopher Theofanidis by simply stating that the piece was based on a C-Major scale, “the white keys on the piano,” as he put it. Pretty much everyone, even if they had no musical training whatsoever, knows what a piano or keyboard looks like and knows what the white keys are. And even for me, with a degree in music performance from a top school, that made an impact…I knew exactly for what I was supposed to listen, and it significantly improved all of our collective experience and enjoyment of the piece. Our job is to help the audience go on the journey, and we must be thoughtful and strategic about how we do that.
Be strategic about WHEN you program. There are times when it’s better to break the mold than others. Sales data supports this, and when all is said and done, sales are, like, really important to our bottom line. So often though, it’s our focus on sales that leads to siloed programming in the first place, and the whole point of this post is to contend that we need to get away from that and instead use sales data to enhance — not play at odds with — artistic decisions. For example, it is no coincidence that next season, the program scheduled immediately before subscription renewals drop is Mozart’s Requiem. It’s totally safe, timeless, and probably going to sell out. And that’s exactly what we want before announcing a new season. So when Donato first brought up that he wanted to do this seminal work with a big chorus (read: expensive!!!), we had a conversation about when on the season best maximized this opportunity for us. On the other hand, when he wanted to program the California premiere of living composer Nathaniel Stookey’s YTTE (Yield to Total Elation), which is not exactly a box office home run (at least not yet!), he talked about pairing that with a Mahler symphony, and we agreed this could be a strong opening to the season. No subscription sales are hinging on the performance, except for the choose-your-own packages we’ll be pushing by the time August/September marketing rolls around, and this is one of those concerts that some people will be happy to choose and some not so much. If we had scheduled this program for say, January, by that time in the season, this program would have had to be on all our small packages because we won’t have as many concerts left to offer, and that simply isn’t the most strategic approach to maximizing those sales. In the end, the music director was able to program the repertoire he wanted and our marketing plan is set up for success. When you program makes a difference.
We live in a time where the value of classical music is not intrinsic to everyone, and in response to that our industry tends to overly focus on concert formats (shorter concerts, rush hour start times, new lighting and projections) and other programming (movie concerts, semi-staged musicals and operas, video game music, pop/rock/hip-hop star collaborations) as a means to draw in those that are unfamiliar with or new to the art form. To a degree this works, and to a degree this does translate to sales. It’s just that we submit to these programming siloes like we’re embarrassed of our core product or something, or like we believe that new audiences won’t see the value in or enjoy “traditional” music. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and we think our traditional audiences won’t see the value in or enjoy the new formats or programming. It’s all good, important, and entertaining though, and all a part of our living, evolving art form. An artistic vision (and a marketing plan) can live in harmony with John Williams and Beethoven, and we do ourselves and our audience a disservice when we as administrators treat them as two composers — or two types of composers — who can’t share the stage. Developing people who love music, period, is achievable.
Aubrey Bergauer, Executive Director, California Symphony Aubrey Bergauer defies trends, and then makes her own. In a time when most arts organizations are scaling back programs, tightening budgets, and seeing declines in tickets and subscriptions, Bergauer has dramatically increased earned and contributed revenue at organizations ranging from Seattle Opera to the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival to the California Symphony. Her focus on not just engaging — but retaining — new audiences grew Seattle Opera’s BRAVO! Club (young patrons group for audience members in their 20’s and 30’s) to the largest group of its kind nationwide, led the Bumbershoot Festival to achieve an unprecedented 43% increase in revenue, and propelled the California Symphony to quadruple the size of its donor base. From growing audiences, increasing concerts, and expanding programs to instilling and achieving common goals across what are usually siloed marketing, development, and artistic departments, Bergauer is someone you want to follow — on the nationally-recognized blog she created to discuss what actually works in a changing arts landscape, and in real life, too.
A graduate of Rice University with degrees in Music Performance and Business, for the last 15 years Bergauer has used music to make the world around her better, through programs that champion social justice and equality, through ground-breaking marketing and audience development tactics on the forefront of technology, and through taking strategically calculated risks in a risk-averse field. If ideas are a dime a dozen, what separates Bergauer is her experience and record of impact and execution at institutions of all sizes. Praised for her leadership which “points the way to a new style of audience outreach,” (Wall Street Journal) and which drove the California Symphony to become “the most forward-looking music organization around.” (Mercury News) Bergauer’s ability to strategically and holistically examine and advance every facet of the organization’s mission and vision is creating a transformational change in the office, on the stage, in the audience, in the community, and going well beyond the industry of classical music.
Temporary Site 