jwilzewske: management

Showing posts with label management. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Party of Two? Valentines, Chamber Music & Health

I n writing a successful quartet, composers have to turn inward and look for their most personal musical message. So also do the performers. There is no room for deception—nothing to disguise it and make it superficially attractive. Seduction or manipulation will be obvious and will fail. Everything in quartets and other small chamber forms is about honesty and mutual discovery.”
— Saul Bitran, violinist, Cuarteto Latinoamericano.

T he only way to reanimate these pieces is to play them with friends... When you’re ‘on’, not only are you breathing together, but you are also feeding off each other. You’re playing with someone who does something spontaneously and you respond, also spontaneously, which takes your performance and experience together to another level entirely.”
— Kathryn Selby, pianist, Macquarrie Trio.

C hamber music, besides being very intimate, is substantially concerned with understanding the other performer(s) on deep levels—doing this in an open and undirected way—and concerned, too, with being generous and responsive to the significant other(s) and creating valuable and meaningful things together with them.

I n that regard, almost any piece of chamber music might be considered to be coherent with the values celebrated on Valentine's Day. Almost all chamber music nurtures a sense of closeness, immediacy, and anticipation.

Y ou want something that is already at least slightly familiar and known to be pleasurable to and enjoyed by your partner—so there will be low risk of disappointment and the greatest probability for delight.

T o heighten the anticipation, an experience that is already familiar can be the subject of hints or other gestures to plan for the experience and savoring that experience. But in order to be worthy of anticipation, the thing hinted at must also be novel in some way, not routine.

B ut there are side-effects each piece can have—inherent objective, physiologic consequences (unintended or otherwise) that accompany the music’s subjective emotional/cognitive/inspirational effects (see Lemmer and other links below). A little quickening of the pulse and transient high blood pressure is what you are after. What I had not expected is how long (many hours) it lasts!

Understand distinctions between history, entitlement, and managerial theories of the self and the significant other.
Avoid defensive, self-protective ‘Model I’ patterns of interpersonal interaction that blame others and limit learning.
Emphasize shared goals, fearlessness, and equality—mutual influence in relationship.
Emphasize modesty of proportion, pleasure of execution, resiliency in the face of set-backs, and durability of vision and passion.
Love is an organization—one that is deserving of deliberate, rational, caring management.
Love is an organization that, like any other enterprise, has explicit and implicit processes—and denying this or neglecting the processes can only but lead to chaos, low client satisfaction, and investor disappointment.
Communicate and critically test each other’s assumptions and beliefs openly and often.
Combine mutual advocacy with inquiry.
Combine shared exertion with shared relaxation and a minimum of irritability and aggression.

Lemmer, Rat Valentines, Hypertension, & Ligeti Quartets

M ozart’s and Haydn’s music had only a slight reducing effect on the heart rate of the spontaneously-hypertensive (SHR) rats, and the blood pressure remained unaffected. The normotensive WKY rats showed no reaction at all. Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 2, on the contrary, caused a massive increase in SBP of around 20 to 30mmHg in the SHR rats which remained discernable over more than 10 hours. The WKY rats also reacted to Ligeti’s music with a raised SBP.”
— Björn Lemmer, Institut für Experimentelle und Klinische Pharmakologie und Toxikologie, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg.

I am not saying to eschew the Ligeti in favor of Mozart or Haydn for Valentine’s Day—not at all; far from it. In fact, the Ligeti may be precisely what you two will prefer on that adventurous intimate occasion. You are looking for a string quartet whose climax is like the last lines of a poem that choke you up a bit; focus the mind and heart, so to say. Sort of like catching sight of the sea—unexpectedly; together. Twenty or 30 mmHg of higher blood pressure for a few hours is precisely what you two are looking for...

C oming back through the Chiba coast I thought of Shonagon’s list—of all those signs one has only to name to quicken the heart, just name. To us, a sun is not quite a sun unless it’s radiant; a spring not quite a spring unless it is limpid. There is a way of saying boat, rock, mist, frog, crow, hail, heron, chrysanthemum—a concise way that includes them all, implies them all.”
— Chris Marker, Sans Soleil.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Constitutional Figments of Bachian Imaginations: Florilegium Compares and Contrasts Compositional Methods of 6 Members of the Bach Family

Bach ahnentafel, the musically important bits

T he Bach family has for a long time been the focus of genealogical research. No other musical family of German origin has spanned so many generations and produced such highly talented performers, as well as composers of the highest order.”
— Florilegium program notes.

T he Florilegium concert at Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 3 November was both illuminating in the musicological sense and satisfying musically.

Ashley Solomon - flute 1
Marta Gonçalves - flute 2
Bojan Čičić - violin 1
Jean Paterson - violin 2
Malgorzata Ziemkiewicz - viola
Jennifer Morsches - cello
Tim Amherst - bass
Terence Charlston - harpsichord

Johann Bernhard Bach - Overture; Marche; Passepied; Air-Lentement; La Joye; Caprice
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach - Sonata in C major
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Sonata in C minor, Wq 161 No. 4
Wilhelm Friedmann Bach - Adagio and Fugue in D minor, Falck 65
Johann Christian Bach - Quintet in D major
Johann Sebastian Bach - Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067

T hey showed through these pieces how each Bach proposed, developed, elaborated, disposed, and decorated each element in structuring his composition.

I f large-scale form really generates the working-out of inventions located right on the musical surface, then one needs plausible evidence of this [in the score]. In the absence of such evidence, the reverse position—following Occam’s Razor—is more compelling: that Bach first worked out his inventions—his themes which he ordered in permutational arrangements—and then ‘disposed’ them in a conventional scheme...”
— Laurence Dreyfus, p. 169.

T hey brought us fresh illustrations of these Bach family members’ working methods, and how they differed from each other. We also learned about the Bachs’ savvy and opportunistic appropriations of French and Italian styles—and about their co-optation of various genres for expressive or programmatic purposes different from their conventional/traditional ones.

T he ensemble played beautifully throughout, and the program was expertly devised to optimize variations in tempi and texture—to maximize dramatic tension, climax, and resolution for the audience—in addition to accomplishing the nominal aim of shedding light on parallels and differences among these Bachs.

T he flutes and viola, for example, in the Johann Bernhard ‘Passepied’ were a lush and serene contrast to the preceding ‘Marche’ and majestic ‘Overture’.

T he flute-violin-harpsichord ‘call-and-answer’ patterns in the Johann Christoph Friedrich Sonata were, for another example, a striking contrast to counterpoint and tutti sectional passages in the surrounding works.

F lorilegium will next perform at the Nicholas Young Society in Lewes, Sussex, on 26 November. The program then promises to be an innovative exposition of Baroque-era trans-national diffusion of musical ideas and is entitled ‘Les Nations’ and includes works by Couperin, Handel, Bach, Purcell, Vivaldi, Marais, Telemann, and Rebel. We look forward as well to future repeats of their fascinating ‘Six Members of the Bach Family’ program.

I n thinking about the various initiatives that Florilegium have taken recently, a unifying concept seems to be ‘innovation’, broadly conceived. Instead of packaging familiar, excellent repertoire in conventional, “safe” concert offerings, they instead differentiate themselves from other first-rate Baroque ensembles by devising novel thematic programs of less-familiar or totally unfamiliar works. Music as ‘international relations’? ‘Nature vs. Nurture’ among Bachs? How was it for Telemann in Paris? Bolivian Baroque? Yes! More, please!

T he program notes and promotional materials for concerts like these are fabulous. They are razor-sharp and provide fresh, engaging copy for print and broadcast and online media, which in turn makes the promotion more effective for these programs compared to more conventional programs, which in turn gets more people buying tickets and into the seats.

A dditionally, the Friends of Florilegium [patrons association] is vibrant and well-managed. The quarterly newsletter (edited by Dame Emma Kirkby OBE [president] and Sir David Lumsden and David Hill [honorary vice presidents]) is a hoot to read, filled with droll humor and exciting news and other bits.

F lorilegium members, led by Director Ashley Solomon, author some of the contributions to the Friends newsletter, and they are informative and engaging. Thank you for the wonderful ‘Bach Family’ concert at Wigmore, and thank you for the Friends’ excellent example of how to foster sustainable financial growth in support of these fine programs and scholarship!

Č ičić [Florilegium principal violinis], coming from a musical family, was sent as a child to play the violin and promptly sobbed, ‘I want the piano!’ He also then began tennis lessons; Croatia is well-known for producing some fine champions. Bojan sadly wasn’t to become one of them… Finally, managing to produce a sound [on violin] that would melt icebergs and later woo women, he gave up on tennis. ‘The fees are getting ridiculously expensive,’ was the explanation given by his parents. Et voilá, yet another child plunges headlong towards the uncertain future of a musician… In order to find out more about his repertoire, he left his job as a modern musician in Zagreb, packed his things, and moved to Paris to study early music, speaking no French. Ahh, Paris, the world’s capital of kindness to foreigners, where one is always welcomed with open arms. Bojan had only one option to escape this everyday problem: immerse himself fully into the music he studied, which was mostly French Baroque. Today, he admits this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but, together with a bath and some Prosecco, it’s a jolly good way to relax...”
— Profile, Friends of Florilegium Newsletter, Summer 2010.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Merge Two Competing Chamber Music Presenter Organizations?

T he effect of the economic downturn is already pronounced—in terms of our subscription sales and attendance so far this season, and in terms of corporate and foundation money. I wonder whether, if we merged with the other main chamber music organization in our city, we might do better overall. The reason I think the answer may be ‘yes’ is that our respective programs tend time and again to collide with and compete against each other for the same audience. For example, two pianists in one week--the other org’s program on Friday night, ours on Saturday night. Or two early music programs within a fortnight. The ‘supply’ [of chamber music programs] exceeds the ‘demand’ in our market area, or at least exceeds our audience members’ monthly budgets of time and money. CMT sometimes has spreadsheets and math [to illustrate how some process works or to provide a tool to help CMT readers’ decision-making]. Could you do something in Excel to show whether there would be financial advantages or disadvantages if we combined with our competitor? The assumptions would be that we would have the same number of events each season [Presenter P’s events + Rival R’s events]; the prices and expenses would be the same [P + R roll-up]; the staff would be the same [P + R, with executive co-directors and artistic co-directors]; and the corporate and foundation funding would be the same [P + R]. If we merged, we would just coordinate our programs to not compete—to more efficiently and effectively serve the demand in our community. Possible?”
— Anonymous.

The performing arts market is tremendously fragmented. That fragmentation inevitably leads to inefficiencies. There are more than 520 presenter entities who are organizational members of Chamber Music America. And one thing that’s clear from examining CMA’s directory of chamber music presenters is that communities in the U.S. that have performing arts markets that are robust enough to have one presenter tend in fact to have two or more chamber music presenters. In many cases, that means that there is relatively intense competition for what is almost certainly a finite market—a finite monthly or quarterly consumer spend per household. Probably the same is also true in cities in Europe and the U.K.

For simplicity and to directly respond to the anonymous emailer’s question, I’ve put together a mathematical model that is for two competitors in a market—a duopoly. It would be far more complex to create an accurate, actionable financial merger model for three or more competitors. Actually, if the proposition were to simultaneously consolidate three or more competitors into one unified presenter organization, then you could still use this Cournot-Nash game-theory model as-is. You would simply put your own figures in as Presenter P, and then sum the figures for all of your competitors and put those sums in the Rival R column.

Basically, you need the ticket sales (earned income) figures for you and your competitor for last season's events—not the ticket drop numbers (with comp tickets and other imponderables) but the cash money taken in. You can exclude the events that each of your orgs produced that did not compete with each other at all—because they were far enough apart (say, more than 4 weeks) so that it’s implausible that a potential audience member would’ve decided to decline to attend your event because they were already attending your competitor’s event, or vice versa. Then you adjust the up-down arrows so that the accomodation figures match your last-season historical values, and so that the Cournot-Nash duopoly figures on the left more or less match the last-season actual average per event period figures on the lower right. (Just click on either of the screen-shot images below to Open or Save_as the Excel spreadsheet.)

Program ‘event periods’ means any interval of time during which the competitors’ programs compete against each other for consumers’ dollars. It doesn’t have to mean conflicting events on the exact same dates. It may be events on adjacent dates, such that attendees who otherwise would like to attend both programs probably will not buy tickets and attend chamber music concerts on two consecutive days. It may be events during the same week or fortnight, with the same criterion that most members of the target market may not attend two or more chamber music events within, say, 10 days of each other.

There are a number of assumptions and limitations of this simple Cournot-Nash model of financial competition:

It doesn’t take into account the possibility of ‘curvature’ of the elasticity of demand;
It ‘linearizes’ the [possibly non-linear] competitive interaction;
It uses the statistical covariance cov(P,R) between the competitors as the measure of the ‘accomodation’ effect of the sales of one presenter on the competitor’s sales, which, while simple, may be a far-from-ideal metric of the competitive economic interaction between the two;
It doesn't account for potential greater-than-additive ‘synergies’ in terms of induced greater demand or brand-recognition or marketing effectiveness that a merged entity might achieve;

and so on. But for a basic, first-order model it does pretty well. It can give you realistic estimates of how strong or weak the competitive process is in your market. And it can give you reasonably accurate, quantitative guidance regarding how large or small the impact of merging/consolidating would be.

With the insights you glean from playing around with this simple model, perhaps you will try to arrange your programming timing and content so as to minimize the numeric value (covariance) of your own ‘accomodation’ to your competitors—i.e., select your artists and programs so as to make your own ticket sales very insensitive to the programming that your competitors present, while simultaneously maintaining your ‘brand’ and maximizing the demand for the programs you select and book.

This simple model can be used to devise other strategies: to make your organization attractive for a merger or, conversely, to make your organization an unattractive target (by removing any appearance of financial advantage associated with combining and coordinating programming so as not to compete). ‘Accomodation’ values that are large (> 40% for one or both competitors) tend to predict financial gains for a merged entity that are upwards of 30% compared to the total annual sales with each competitor separate. Conversely, ‘accomodation’ values that are low (< 10% for one or both competitors) tend to predict that merging the competitors would not net much income growth for the merged entity—growth of 15% or less.

So please have a look at the model. Send me email or comment on it if you wish. And give us your thoughts in the poll that’s embedded in this post. (Note: Your participation in the online poll does not disclose your own identity or your organization’s identity, nor does it reveal anything about your community. It does not collect information other than which selection you click on.) Thank you!

Online Surveys & Market Research

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Ensembles of Unusual Size (EOUS): Where to Look for Help, Ideas, Financial Analytics

W e are thinking about doing piano quintets next year. We realize that it will increase our expenses. And the logistics will get more complex by adding another member to the group. We have a vague idea that there must be ways to calculate and anticipate quantitatively what the advantages and disadvantages would be, financially. But none of us really has any background in that. Is there anyplace we should look, for pointers on how to figure that out?”
— Anonymous.

Many ensembles’ formation can be credited to organic causes—shared “motives, means, and opportunities” the founding members have, that incline them to commit a certain species of musical ‘crimes’ together; similar personalities and temperaments; compatible work schedules and living arrangements, enabling convenient rehearsals and coordinated travel to performance locations. Other ensembles’ origins are more tactical or happenstantial—having to do with chance availability to collaborate in a particular configuration; a viola or a cello is needed and what was imagined at the outset to be transient grows into something enduring.

But increasingly ensembles look to add repertoire that will enhance the group’s repertory breadth, and provide timbral contrast and broadened ‘curb’ appeal. Frankly, the latter probably has more to do with creating market differentiation in a classical music competitive environment that is more crowded and fragmented than ever before. For presenters hungry for artists who will perform exciting, seldom-performed literature, it’s a way to construct a [yet-more-] special ‘experience’ that will attract attendees who do not ordinarily subscribe, and bond [yet-more-] tightly with regular patrons.

Easier said than done, though. Each change in programming or personnel brings marginal (incremental) income and marginal (incremental) expenses. Logistics inevitably become more complex if the ensemble grows or the repertoire involves auxiliary members. Unless your ensemble has a member already whose skills and natural propensities lean toward finance and operations, quantitatively planning and managing those incremental changes can be daunting. [For those of you who are so inclined, there are several decent non-profit management books below that you will find helpful.]

In my view, the far more difficult aspect is figuring out what the options are that you can do and that have market appeal and address an unmet need that nobody else is filling. You start with the chicken, or you start with the egg. In smaller cities / college towns, you may have the colleague (egg) at hand—the one whose instrument and playing and preferred repertoire and personal tendencies are well-known to you—and you try to devise a way of integrating that person into your ensemble or add repertoire to specifically utilize that resource as auxiliary to the regular ensemble. In larger cities, you may have the concept and the repertoire to realize that concept well in mind (chicken)—and you try to locate a copascetic colleague to help make it happen.

But it’s probably harder to find and integrate a copascetic violist into a piano trio (piano, violin, cello) than adding a pianist to three-quarters of a string quartet (violin, viola, cello). [Supply and demand! Demographics, by instrument! Sociology, of those who self-select to play each instrument! Asymmetric versatility, based on size and diversity of literature various instruments force performers to assimilate. Instruments’ ‘personalities’! Acyclic directed-graph theory, to account for all of the above! Arggh!]

Aspects regarding particular ensemble instrumentations are nicely covered in the new second edition of the Maurice Hinson - Wesley Roberts book . I’ve had a used copy of the excellent 1977 first edition on my shelf but had not seen the new edition until recently. It’s a wonderful book for many reasons, not least of which is the treatment it provides of ‘unusual’ ensembles. Admittedly, it addresses this from the perspective/premise ‘ensembles-one-member-of-which-is-piano’, and the repertoire cited is exclusively that which has the prerequisite piano part, but the principles and discussion readily generalize to other ensembles that are piano-less.

In a way, adding a member, even as an occasional or auxiliary to your regular ensemble, is a kind of ‘security infrastructure’, to help protect the market viability of the ‘product’ your ensemble is offering. And the return-on-investment (ROI) for infrastructure of any kind can be difficult to quantify. Some companies don’t even try to quantify ROI for infrastructure, and go ahead and implement it based more or less on instinct or qualitative argments.

Here is a very basic equation for calculating the ROI, one that neglects the time-value-of-money (applicable interest rate):

ROI% = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100

The payback is the total amount of incremental money earned from your investment in your ensemble. Investment is the incremental amount of expense incurred, to generate the payback. (Of course, if payback is less than your investment, then ROI can be negative——not a good thing.)

At some point, calculating the ROI for ‘infrastructure’ becomes unnecessary, because the capabilities the infrastructure enables are both mission-critical and readily understood by others. For example, when is the last time any commercial business required an ROI analysis to decide whether or not to invest in enabling infrastructure such as computers or e-mail? The same might be said for your decisions about ensemble repertoire or personnel adjustments. Quantitative ROI for EOUS can be viewed as somewhere between ‘very difficult’ and ‘not necessary’, between a leap of faith and a matter of course.

If, however, your ensemble’s operating expenses are underwritten by a foundation or other sponsor who requires a quantitative financial analysis from you, you may find yourself forced to justify the marginal expenses in terms of the marginal income that will be generated—in terms of the improved operating ratio that your proposed ensemble personnel changes make possible. If you are in such a situation, have a look at the books in the link list below. Your cost estimates should be captured for a reasonable period of time, typically two to three years. Put those in your pro forma financial statement—your Excel spreadsheet [click link to open example template sheet] showing rows of income items and expense items and columns for each year. In considering a variable-ensemble framework, however, here are three obvious, but important, caveats:

Use incremental analysis. ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ (TCO) calculations [‘ownership’ of the EOUS ‘asset’ that your modified ensemble and its expanded repertoire represents] should include only those investments that are incremental to those that have already been made and that are directly attributable to the EOUS ‘asset’.
Use the line-item veto. Variable ensemble configurations with thematically-varied or period-varied repertoire is a sophisticated approach with many available options, and obviously not all options are required for each season. If a particular cost element doesn’t apply to a particular season within your pro forma planning horizon, don’t include it. Structure your plan with a ‘Plan B’ and a Plan C’ so that you can gracefully accommodate contingencies that may arise, with reduced impact on the ensemble’s overall market and income and with minimal risk to the financial health of the core ensemble.
Keep costs in perspective. TCO is a perfectly appropriate metric for ROI calculations if one or more of the sources of your funding requires you to prepare a financial justification for the programming you wish to undertake, but cost is certainly not the sole criterion for vetting what repertoire you will offer. Qualitative justification, in terms of social diversity or other arguments, may be equally persuasive depending on the mission and remit of the funding organization or state. Your regular management agency should be able to assist with ‘qualitative’ justifications—it is within the scope of management, servicing, and public relations services that are the routine province of managers.

In summary, by properly framing the ROI discussion you can quantify financial returns using a straightforward and widely-accepted approach, such as one of those commonly used in business management of small not-for-profit organizations.