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The Musician Centric Podcast
Two professional violists, Liz O'Hara and Stephanie Knutsen, explore diverse perspectives in the music field through conversations together and with friends. Whether gaining fresh insights from industry innovators or laughing their way through a show like Mozart in the Jungle, Liz and Steph hope to inspire musicians, particularly freelancers, to feel a sense of agency in their lives.
**Note: This podcast was formerly titled the ViolaCentric podcast**
The Musician Centric Podcast
Revolutionizing Music: From the Stage to Arts Administration with Aubrey Bergauer
Stories? Questions? Thoughts? TEXT us here!
In this episode, we welcome the dynamic Aubrey Bergauer, the brilliant mind behind the upcoming book 'Run it Like a Business.' Aubrey brings a fresh and thought-provoking perspective to our conversation, shedding new light on arts administration, nonprofit organizations, and her unique strategies for building and retaining arts audiences. With a passion for working offstage to bring performing arts to life, Aubrey's insights are sure to ignite your imagination for the future of our field.
As we delve deeper into the realm of arts administration, we highlight the critical role of data in evaluating art, the need for connection in music, and the potential benefits of vertical integration for arts organizations. From examining the user experience in classical music to discussing the importance of changing the narrative in arts administration, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. This conversation is a great reminder that the world of music doesn't end at the edge of the stage!
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Mentioned in this episode:
Aubrey’s website: https://www.aubreybergauer.com/
Aubrey's book, Run it Like a Business - pre-order it here!
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Episode edited by: Emily MacMahon and Liz O’Hara
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Before we were recording, you were sharing with me that this recital opportunity has come up like a full-on recital shared with a pianist. You'd play two sonatas and maybe a solo piece that's unaccompanied and the timeline. And this person has gone ahead and looked into a venue and it's like this opportunity is being presented before you and it feels. You described how it felt. How did it feel?
Speaker 2:It feels scary but also exciting, which I was saying is probably just the right thing for what I need to be doing yes, yes, so they'll push you out of your comfort zone a little bit, yeah. There's something about reconnecting to yourself as a musician, that you make the choices. You're owning it.
Speaker 1:You'll own every aspect of that.
Speaker 2:Right, like all the creative decisions, all the musical decisions will be mine or work together with whatever Collaboratively with one other person. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:It's really. I mean, it's exciting to think about, and we were like start to talking heavily about this and then stuff's like should we record? Like probably so we're. I'm trying to recap what gold was coming up, but I think one of the things that you also mentioned was this idea that trusting, when the concrete work offer isn't sitting in front of your face and you don't have that guarantee of it's going to support your income or your career in some monetary way, it somehow causes a reaction of like this isn't as valuable, but it really is. It's. Space has been created for you to go for this opportunity and it could turn into an abundance of who knows what on the other side of it, like just in terms of following the direction of the opportunities that are presented that are scary and also exciting.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:For sure, different direction for the year.
Speaker 2:Maybe, maybe. Welcome to the Musician Centric podcast. We are two freelance violists living and laughing our way through conversations that explore what it means to be a professional musician in today's world.
Speaker 1:I'm Steph and I'm Liz and we're so glad you've joined us. Let's dive in. I was just talking with somebody. He is a jazz musician and we've known each other for a very long time. We were at a jam session last night and he was sitting there and he's like man, this environment. I feel so at home right now. I feel so comfortable and just like I came up in this environment, just go into all these sessions and just sitting in and playing and like being uncomfortable. And I said, this environment is like literally the opposite of feeling at home or at ease for me. I, when I think about what did I say last night? He laughed really hard. I was like when I'm in this environment, I just feel a well of regret for how many chances I didn't take.
Speaker 2:Wow, oh, that's interesting, I know, I know, I mean, what is it about a jam?
Speaker 1:session. It's particularly dramatic to say that, because that's not really true. I mean, I love my life, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:Well, there's, there's some kernel of truth in there. Yes, so there's something about it.
Speaker 1:So here we are. We're talking about taking chances with our creative lives. That world is for sure the creative chance I didn't take when I was younger and could have. I was the jazz yes, ok. So by the time I graduated undergrad I was mostly spending time in the jazz world, aside from gigs I was getting paid to do and you know my school requirements and recitals and stuff but I was taking jazz theory classes. I was playing on all my friends recitals.
Speaker 1:I had a really good friend, brilliant pianist, named Yuiichi Uzeki, who's now back in Japan, but he wrote all kinds of original tunes and he actually wrote tunes for me to play solo on people's recitals and stuff. And so right at the end of my time there and into the summer before I moved, I was starting to learn how to improvise with him. We would just go in together, he'd play, and then he'd be like just go, just do stuff. I'd be like I don't know what I'm doing, this is terrible, I don't know what to do. Give me a piece of paper with notes on it, please. And then I moved away, as we've talked about before, and it just became a thing that I used to do. You know that I used to dabble in. It just became this thing and I put it away and I went to grad school down here and I started playing in the symphonic world and I'm happy to reconnect with chamber music in a real serious way. But I've not ventured into that world but I feel myself being called to it.
Speaker 2:I'm not necessarily jazz.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the hot cash $100. $100 a night in jazz I can make. But yeah, that's exactly what you were talking about.
Speaker 1:It's an intangible. I feel like I'm on the verge, and I've felt this way for a while. I told my friend this last thing I feel like I'm on the verge of being ready to experiment. I bought all the equipment last year. I'm trying to walk the talk, but I also had so many mental and emotional inhibitors to my creativity over the last several months that I feel like I'm on the precipice of a point where I can say, okay, now go do this thing, you're ready, you set yourself up, just start messing around and see what happens. So, actually, and then I got great advice, which was to contact all my buddies from school and ask them to suggest a solo that I should transcribe one a month and I should just do that. I should just ask them for advice and they'll give me solos and I'll make a list, and then I transcribe one a month and I just do that. And he's like, by the end of the year you'll have so much material for solos.
Speaker 1:He's like you'll be infinitely in a better place than you are right now.
Speaker 2:Like you'll know so much more that is. So that's such a good step for somebody who is not comfortable making up their own stuff. You know, what I always find intimidating about jazz is all of the theory, all of the chord changes and knowing what happens and what scale and all that stuff. But that doesn't have to be the first step. It could be something that we understand.
Speaker 1:We have the skills to do that. It's not easy, but we have the skills to do it. He also did give me the caveat, though he's like you've also got to learn your scales. We don't play the same scales. I was like no, no, you play all the scales, we just play two of them, is what you're saying? We only know two of them. So I could do that. That part doesn't scare me because we've been practicing scales our whole lives. The part that scares me is like putting the headphones on and then trying to catch everything that fricking John Coltrane does on a solo.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe you don't start there. That's what I said.
Speaker 1:I was like okay, you get to give me my first solo, but please go easy on me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, make it like 101 levels. What a great idea. I love that.
Speaker 1:It's inspiring. It gave me this feeling of like I could do that. I could spend time once a month doing that. It's not that crazy. I don't know. Maybe I'll find ways to hold myself accountable online or something like that. We'll see, We'll see.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'll bring this up now because we're both reading the same book right now, called Creative Success, now by Astrid Baumgartner, and I wonder if we should do it for our Joy Loves company, because there's an accompanying workbook, right? What brings it to mind is that she's like one of the steps is like figure out what your purpose is according to your values, etc. Etc. But if you don't feel like you have the purpose, one of the alternatives is to commit yourself to experimenting. So for a period of however long, like maybe a year, you say I'm going to experiment with XYZ, I'm going to transcribe one solo a month, whatever, and so you experiment in different areas and you kind of pick what feels natural and what lights you up.
Speaker 2:So that's great, but maybe that would be a good book. I know, Let us know if you would be interested listeners, readers if you'd be interested in doing something like that, Because I think we all get to a point where we're like, ah, we've been doing the same thing for so long, you gotta just kind of stuck.
Speaker 1:You gotta just like you gotta brush away all the cobwebs in a way. So anyway, how's everything else going?
Speaker 2:Good, my husband has COVID.
Speaker 1:He has COVID house.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like all we're in the COVID house right now, again, again, except I'm not the son of it, I'm practicing, which is nice. Yeah, everything's going great. That's really, really. It's fine.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:How about you? What's going on with you? I mean thanks to the jam session.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went to the jam session. Also, I had my feel on my back because I was teaching before I got there and I would never and. I walked in and I was like, oh, are you going to sit in? You're going to sit in. I was like no, I'm not going to sit in. The guy at the end who ran the festival, he's like you had an instrument with you. Why didn't you sit in? I was like because I'm a reader.
Speaker 2:Is that the term?
Speaker 1:That's the term. We're readers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like breeders, we're readers. That's the derogatory gesture for us.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I will say too, one of the observations about that was it was just so warm and inviting and it didn't matter who had what experience Like there was a gentleman who got up there and played accordion.
Speaker 1:It was adorable it was just fun. It was just like relaxed and low key and I am ever striving for that elusive balance of space for myself and yes to opportunity. And this fall for a lot of reasons. I feel a little bit overextended and I had to just take a minute a couple days ago. I had a therapy session yesterday and I was talking to my therapist about this and it was actually really great. It was a moment of like good job, Liz.
Speaker 1:I felt burnout approaching. K-asset has started to build. I now have five weeks in a row I'm going to spend time out of town. That's a lot of back and forth and, particularly as I've come to understand with the way I function, it's really hard for me to just like get back into some sort of okay, here you are, you got home on Sunday night, Like, do all the stuff you need to do so that you're set for the next day. That's a challenge for me.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, but I recognized the approach toward burnout before I got there. I actually felt myself reacting to people, places, things, in a way that's like this isn't really how I feel about this situation, but I'm feeling negatively about it and I think it's because I'm tired. I think I need to check out for a little bit. So I did. I gave myself off the grid time on Tuesday night for a good good, good long while and I woke up yesterday morning and I was like, oh me again. And then yesterday I could just tackle a bunch of chores and get stuff done, and so it was sort of one of those like yay moments of recognizing a thing before it hits like critical mass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's bad yeah.
Speaker 1:Like a good moment of self-awareness in that way. So that's exciting. Now I get to see how successfully I could do it for the next month.
Speaker 2:Well, there are just these little wins. You know, that's right, that's right. Changes happen in baby steps.
Speaker 1:And I don't intend, I do not mean to complain in any way, shape or form. I love what I'm doing. It's really fun. For whatever reason, my employment opportunities have all been presented out of town so far this year, aside from my quartet, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:I am not okay with that oh.
Speaker 1:I do miss our stand partner now.
Speaker 2:Well what am I saying we are going to be? Stand partners we're going to be stand partners.
Speaker 1:Two weeks from now, we're going to be sitting in a rehearsal giggling and carrying on as subtly as possible.
Speaker 2:Yes, it will be fun, that will be fun.
Speaker 1:I know, yeah, we'll have to like. Well, we'll share extra.
Speaker 2:We shouldn't have to go to another city for that. That's what I'm saying. Well, we are just absolutely ecstatic that you're here listening to us, and I wish this could be like a more than two-way conversation. Wouldn't that be cool to talk to more people? Yeah, it would be great. Are our listeners Maybe?
Speaker 1:one of these days we'll figure out how to do call ins. Yeah. Yeah, that would be kind of that would be maybe a perk for Patreon.
Speaker 2:True, so we have a Patreon. Yeah, if you like this, then that would be a good place to get more of this right. Patreoncom slash MusicianCentric yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Awesome. So this second episode of the season we were so excited to host Aubrey Burgauer, who is just like a powerhouse in reframing the concept of arts administration and running nonprofit arts organizations and she is releasing a book next year called Run it Like a Business and that's sort of her platform. So we spoke with her and had a great conversation about so many facets of the orchestral organization world and some different, I think, perspectives and approaches to how we've been managing that as a whole over the last several decades.
Speaker 2:Right. So we're clearly at a turning point and Aubrey has been doing a lot of work over in California with some of their symphonies over there and she is just espousing her really fresh ideas that are taken directly from the business world and why businesses are successful and why can't we in the arts use those strategies for ourselves to retain and build audiences. She's written a whole book on it and Liz and I got to preview that and we got to talk with her about that and I think that comes out in February so you can preorder that book. We'll talk about it in our conversation with Aubrey. But if you're in arts administration, we hope that you connect with some of these ideas.
Speaker 2:If you're a freelancer, like us, these are great brand new opportunities to be involved in the orchestras that you play in and to kind of solidify your work. If these organizations are healthy, then our career is healthy. So let us know your thoughts. Email us, MusicianCentric at gmailcom or you can always DM us on Instagram or Facebook. If you love this episode, please, please, please, share it. We'll have links on all of our social media. You can share it directly from your podcast listening app. Share it with one friend. That helps us so much. Spread the word please. But anyway, enjoy this conversation with Aubrey Bergauer.
Speaker 1:It's that time of year we're back to school and we are back to gigging. Even if you're not mentally ready for the season, you can count on our season sponsor, Potter Violins, to get your equipment ready. When's the last time you've reheared your bow stuff?
Speaker 2:Oh, I feel like it was recently, but I bet it's been over six months, so I got to get over there and get it freshened up. Oh, and I need new backup strings and an instrument adjustment.
Speaker 1:Sounds like it might be about time. Yeah, I do love to get in there for a visit to our favorite technicians as we approach the change of season.
Speaker 2:Maybe I need a new case too. And, as we've said before, if you need a rental instrument, they're the place to go. My daughter and many of my students rent from Potters and the instruments are really fantastic, even the smaller violas.
Speaker 1:Yes, get back to your music this season with confidence by visiting Potter Violins, so your equipment will be ready, even if you might need a bit more of a warm-up. Hailed as the Steve Jobs of classical music and the Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony, aubrey Bergauer is known for her results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of changing the narrative for the performing arts. She's held offstage roles, managing millions in revenue at major institutions including Seattle Symphony, seattle Opera and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Aubrey helps organizations and individuals transform from scarcity to opportunity, make money and grow the base of fans and supporters, which is something we are all looking for as artists. Her work and leadership has been covered in the Wall Street Journal, entrepreneur, thrive, global and Southwest Airlines magazines, and she is a frequent speaker spanning TEDx, adobe's, magento, universities and industry conferences in the US and abroad. Aubrey's first book as if she wasn't busy enough, run it Like a Business publishes in February of 2024. We got a sneak peek at that, and we'll talk about that a little bit in the conversation, but welcome to the Musician-centric podcast Aubrey.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you, Liz, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Steph for having me. Yeah, we're excited and we know you're super busy, so thanks for fitting us in. But yeah, I mean congratulations also on your book. I mean, what was that like writing a book? Like how long did it take you? Was it like years? Was it months?
Speaker 3:Well, it was a long time, so here's the joke I make that, hopefully. I was like debating in my head can I make this joke on this podcast publicly? But I'm going to do it, which is to say, I've decided publishing is the only industry that moves slower than classical music, so, please, okay for me to make that joke, like I said, 100% okay. What I mean by that, though, is that I mean you could self publish, and it's not that it could be very quick, but I wanted to at least try to get picked up by a publisher, just to have the reach and the professional editing team and all the things that do come with that. So, given that that worked the agent, the publisher this is like a whole new world for me.
Speaker 3:It's been a long road, and I started working on this, at least in concept, in 2019., and then fast forward a couple years. You have to write this whole proposal, shop it around to agents, and then, eventually, the agent got it sold to a publisher, and so then the manuscript itself the writing was May of 2022 through November. That was the first draft, and then it's November of last year, and then November through about May or June of this year. It was the editing and back and forth and reworking things, and then now we've just sent it off to press.
Speaker 1:So congratulations. So, if we back up a little bit, for a lot of our listeners who are in the musician space, they may not actually know of your work necessarily because you are, as you say, offstage doing all of that behind the scenes work, which is incredibly vital, and we're excited to dig into this arts admin world, quote, unquote. But can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into arts admin and how it led to the passion you have for your vision for the future of our field.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was trained as a player.
Speaker 3:I played an instrument seriously growing up, went to music school, but it was in high school when I first realized that there is a job managing the operation and I decided that that was the path I wanted.
Speaker 3:And so for undergrad, double majored in business as well as a degree in music performance, and so that was important to me to have the training of a professional musician and at least understand, you know, what is required to have these important jobs. But then also was pursuing what I think are these other important jobs, which is the offstage work, and I'm a firm believer it takes all of us onstage and off to do what we do. We need each other totally a lot to say about breaking down the us versus them tropes, but the short version is that's been my whole path. And then you know you said the bio at the beginning of the career and the organizations I've worked for, and I'll just add to that that it was so early on, it was, you know nobody. So early on I started identifying the challenges with the industry and nobody teaches us in school about this offstage work required.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nodding heads no way, yeah, and so I've been on this path to really, yes, optimize the business side of what we do. But also the conclusion I've come to is that if we trained our offstage talent with the rigor that we train our onstage talent, wow, this industry would be so different. And so that's been more of my work in recent years is how do I teach more? How do I train more? How do we up level our skills offstage so that we can generate the revenue we need to fund the art we want to produce?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really powerful, because I think of the arts administrators that I know who've come up into that position, and they start off as players, right, or like members of the orchestra who want to contribute more, and so they move their way onto that side of things. The love of the art is there, but the know how of how to put it out there. As you know, a functioning and sustainable business is not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I mean we talk about like systemic issues. This is so at the crux of it and there's a lot of systemic issues, I think, in our industry, but this is a big one where it just goes back to the days of training and because this offstage work is not addressed and this is starting to change a little bit. So sort of caveat to what I'm saying, thank goodness it's starting to change a little bit. But because this offstage work by and large is not addressed, we just all are sort of taught like you go and you win the audition and you play the gig and all this other stuff happens and the audience turns up and the donations are given and it's like magic little fairies just work back there we learn like oh yeah, it doesn't really happen that magic fairy way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It is really fascinating to think about, and often I think from the musician perspective, I'll go out there and say that we have a little bit of a sense of entitlement. That's like I'm getting hired to play this job and here's all these people that are like working their butts off to make sure this happens. But that's not my job. My job is just to show up and play, and I do see that starting to shift, I think more often, at least in the freelance space, we have a lot of you know, quote unquote startups, and so these organizations are actually like relatively grassroots and they're working together with the musicians to try to build their product, so to speak. And to your point, I do think there are things that are changing about that and there are more opportunities, I guess, in training to add an arts admin component or add some sort of business component in a way that was very discouraged for a long time, as we all know.
Speaker 3:Or at least knowledge of these roles. I'm not saying everybody has to be proficient in these roles, but like at least. I mean there's so many times like, yeah, you're nodding your heads already. Like you know, musicians graduate. It's incredibly talented when in audition and then you don't know anything beyond the lane they've been told their whole life to stay in and that's just really problematic in serving these broader goals that we all have.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, that's absolutely wild. Can you give us you know, your innovative way of approaching arts? Admin, your book title says it all right, run it like a business. If you were to give your elevator pitch to our listeners, how would you describe your perspective and what you feel your mission is in these spaces?
Speaker 3:My brand for many years now has been changing the narrative and I believe that trends can be bucked and trends can be reversed, and that's been a real through line for all of my work and so the idea of I really thrive on change in many ways. I know change can be very scary, but I just believe so much that it's necessary for our industry. So changing the narrative is the brand I've started to take more and more of the past. I don't know year and a half that the narrative is changing slowly, but it is changing. And even, as you said, there's so many entrepreneurial musicians and so many people on stage and off who do not believe, wow, we do need each other going back to breaking down the us versus them trope and I just really do see the conversation shifting, actions shifting in many cases. So it changes slow, but it is happening. And then the other piece. This is getting to be a very long elevator pitch, but the other piece is it's a long elevator ride we have 12 years.
Speaker 2:We have 12 years.
Speaker 3:We have a long skyscraper. It's all skyscraper. The other piece is what you said about taking what works in other industries and, at the end of the day, a lot of our arts organizations are e-commerce businesses. We sell tickets direct to consumer. We are content producers. There's a lot to say about that Digital content, in-person content. We are subscription brands, Like we were kind of the OG subscription model 50 years ago and that's shifting as subscriptions and membership economy has shifted. So a lot to say about that.
Speaker 3:But my point is in saying all this is there are a lot of things we do not everything, but a lot of things we do that other industries, specifically for-profit businesses, have really thrived and mastered and I do not think we have to reinvent the wheel. I think there's a lot we can learn from those strategies and so much of my work yes, about the innovation piece has been not that original. It's been adopting these strategies that are working elsewhere, applying that to what we do and then, sure enough, seeing that, yeah, these strategies work. It's not just that we're a secret anomaly somewhere, Like no, at the end of the day, we're serving consumers in many ways and there's just a lot to be done to optimize that better.
Speaker 2:Right. So as an arts administrator, I'm sure you talked about bridging the gap between the musicians and the administration. So what do you see as an ideal situation where musicians can involve themselves in the administrative side and administrators can kind of reach out to the actual musicians who are playing the shows?
Speaker 3:I think a lot of times it's very simple breaking down that fourth wall, and sometimes it's just acknowledging that there is an audience there, and even that a lot of times brings up a debate are we here to serve the art or the audience, and can these things coexist? As my question, I believe yes, and of course we want to serve the art, but without an audience we don't really get to exist as organizations. Anyway, so with that sort of if we can agree on that as a common ground, that we serve the art and, yes, we serve an audience and a community, then that starts to, I think, really change. Like, how can a musician be involved? Okay, so it's acknowledging this audience is very important to our existence. And so then it's other little things that come from that.
Speaker 3:I love involving musicians with donors. I know not everybody wants to do that. I believe in paying musicians for their time. So I'm not trying to say we need a bunch of free labor that's not compensated somehow, but I think always just really opens the door to greater donor conversation, really connecting them to the work we do, these things that we need to do when we're cultivating and stewarding our donors. So I could go on and on, but a lot of times it really is little things like that where it's like it's breaking down the silo If it's not like the offstage people do this work and I do this work on stage when I show up and instead saying I think there's a lot more overlap even in these smaller ways, you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I wonder too I was just thinking, as this conversation has been unfolding this way about, and I suspect we would all agree. It is rooted in the concept of scarcity, particularly in a field with we hear about diminishing budgets and bankruptcies and all sorts of things. Less opportunities for musicians or more musicians out there and not enough opportunities. Keeping up with that, and I'm wondering to kind of reverse it as opposed to discussing what we can do differently, what do you see in the offstage presence? What do you see as the biggest barriers that are getting in the way of making that progress? Or what did you see in your experiences that kind of got you to shift? And I know you've mentioned being data-driven as well, so I think statistics probably back up anything that you have.
Speaker 3:I think this point of data let's stay on that for a bit because we'll work backwards to the end of your question what prevents us from kind of really honing in on the data? I think I get asked this a lot and I think the answer this is just my opinion. I don't have data to back up this opinion, but I'm good, I love opinions.
Speaker 3:Okay, and I think it's because our art form is so subjective. Art is in the eye of the beholder right, and there are definitely standards of excellent playing, of course, in ways that are more straightforward, but on the whole it's subjective, and evaluating art of any discipline is often subjective. And so I think because that is for hundreds of years true of our art form that then as the art form evolved into a professionalized, actual branch of management, writing the book, I went deep into the research of how did arts administration as a field come about and the evolution of that. That's part of it. And then over maybe the last like 40 years I would say, is when management side of things really did become more professionalized, like I said, as a subdiscipline of business management as a whole. And you start marrying that with everything we've already said about the way our training is and how people come into these administrative roles or lack of training on the offstage stuff. You know, all of those things we've said put all that together in subjectivity and I think it's kind of a recipe for not having originated arts administration that is, not having originated from business fundamentals in the way other subdisciplines of business and management were built.
Speaker 3:So, like I said, that's my opinion and there is some research in that as I shared. But that's me just trying to sort of amalgamate what I've learned about the history of our profession, and so I think this is a way the narrative is changing that in terms of people in our field wanting to be more data driven, I felt like I used to be pretty alone on the data soap box and we've come so far in that and now more the conversation is not like refusal of data I would say sometimes that happens, but not as much. It's more like how, how do I do this, how do I leverage data, how do I learn about my own patron database? And that's a shift in a good way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think also, like we have the tendency to think that we're special and I think you alluded to this way before Like nobody gets us, nobody understands classical music like we understand classical music, so you couldn't possibly teach me anything from the business side of things. So what's been the biggest thing in your experience that you've taken over from the business world or concept that's absolutely worked in the classical music world?
Speaker 3:User experience research. Okay, so let's unpack that and define that User experience research for anybody listening, if you don't know, it's just going to your user, meaning your customer, and asking them about their experience. And this, for me, changed everything. I am not being dramatic when I say that because, like so many of us, I just had these preconceived notions of what an audience member does or doesn't know about our art form, and I've learned there's a real bias called hindsight bias and it's the phenomenon that when people learn something, they forget what it's like to not know that thing.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that applies so much to what we do when we're talking about marketing, presentation of our product, concert experience, all of those things, because we just forget what it's like to not know what we know about classical music. And so, doing user experience research, we've learned things like smart grown adults who are intelligent, well educated, but just don't really go to classical music and then combine that with the decline in public music education. Like, what I've learned is like the baseline of grown adults is they don't even always know the names of the instruments. Okay, no judgment, like when I first realized that I was. Like, talk about hindsight bias, I cannot remember not knowing the names of the instruments.
Speaker 3:Yes yeah, right. So the scales fell off my eyes when I started to understand, like, oh, there is a massive disconnect between what a new audience member knows. Again, smart, educated, grown adults, millennials, gen Xers the knowledge gap is so broad between what they know and what I know. And once I realized no judgment, just trying to understand where this disconnect is, I was like, oh okay, so then what do we do with that?
Speaker 3:User experience research? It's really about asking them how they feel. So this is important because a lot of times organizations are like oh, I'm gonna go to the audience and ask them should we program more or less Beethoven? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't do that. Instead, user experience is about how do we feel. So what do they feel? They feel intimidated, they feel unwelcome, they feel like they're so curious but like those means are not getting met and they want to learn, but they can't, because if they don't understand the names of the instruments, for example, they don't understand instrumentation when that's what's in the program notes.
Speaker 2:Right 222. That's so true. Of course, it's so true.
Speaker 1:Like why, oh my God, why should they care? I mean honestly, why should they care Honestly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But it breaks it down to like why do people come? They come to feel and they come to be moved, yes, and they don't come shopping for one experience or another, they just want the whole experience to be one that moves them.
Speaker 1:I have this like quick anecdote about this exact thing. I was playing a festival this summer in a rural town in Pennsylvania I've done it for many years and it's a college campus where we do this festival and we were at one of the local hangs just having some beer and pizza for rehearsal and this 21 year old student from the college who's in a frat comes over and just wants a biased pitcher of beer because he's like oh hey, you guys are clearly not from around here, let's just say hi and hang out, whatever. And sure enough we start having a conversation telling them what we're there for and he's just like aghast. He took a music appreciation class in college and that's about like the extent of his knowledge and we went around and played that game. Guess what instrument I play? You know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, because it says a lot about your personality and all that.
Speaker 1:So we wanted him to do that. We were like you need to guess what instruments we play. And he's like I wouldn't even know what to say.
Speaker 2:He knew band instruments.
Speaker 1:I think we mentioned cello and he was like, don't know what that is. And we're like, well, come to the concert tomorrow, you can find out. And it ended up being this little mini opportunity I hate to use the word educate, but just to give someone a new window of experience that they hadn't had before, just by having the conversation with us. We'd talk to him about the music and just shop talk. He's sitting there like aghast and just totally mesmerized by this ridiculous shop talk we're doing. And sure enough, he came by himself, dressed himself up. I had a comp ticket. He came to the concert. Sarah Chang played violin. It was amazing, it was beautiful. Of course he doesn't know who Sarah Chang is, but he was just like that was so awesome. But just, he had context, yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 3:Right, okay, so I have to respond to some of that because it's so spot on so you hesitate to do. Is where it's education? I don't. I now say, when I'm working with marketing teams, like marketing is education, that is your job. When you just put the program listening on the website, that is not enough.
Speaker 3:Like they don't know and that became clear in the user experience research we've done we look at a program and we're like, oh, copeland, shostakovich and whoever else, like we know, okay, some American music, some Russian music, some maybe 20th century, right, we know, we're instantly processing this. They have no idea, no idea. And so, as one participant put it, they said I want to know, is this a romantic comedy or a tragedy? And it's like, oh right, like we infer so much about these composers and what that program looks like just from those names and again, they don't have that context. So, education, education, education all the time. And there's a lot about that of like storytelling. It doesn't have to be pedantic education, but, yes, all these things that we learned in school.
Speaker 3:If let's talk about Shostakovich response to the Russian government, right, where it's like, yeah, yeah, we know, we know, we know, but they don't know, so let's talk about it. Anyways, there's all that. But then the part you said also about once that person came to the concert. Okay, so this is the other thing we've seen in our user experience research, and now I've seen this reproduced multiple times at many organizations. But when you're actually talking about the product itself not the concert experience, not the program book, but like the music on stage they're always like wow, wow, I had no idea, and I mean I literally heard them say I didn't know it would sound that different than Spotify.
Speaker 1:And it's like again no judgment, but they don't know any better. They didn't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so, like I said, when I say this stuff changed everything for me, I'm like, okay, the music itself is not the problem, the performance. I mean. It goes right back to the exceptional training our artists have. That's the piece we've worked on as an industry hole for hundreds of years to deliver exceptionally well. And we do. And that emotion, that feeling is awe and that is what we deliver, and it's like okay, everything else tangential to that, that's the part of the business. That's where the opportunity lies.
Speaker 2:I love that so much and it's such a subtle shift, but such an important shift to think of that gap in knowledge not as a barrier but as an opportunity. Right, it's like, oh my gosh, there's this huge potential audience. I just need to package it in the right way and talk to them where they are and help them learn about what we do, and that's where the growth is. It's not about bringing people up to our level so they can appreciate what we do and say wow, wow, wow. It's like crossing that little barrier, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the wow is going to come. I mean, that's the thing it's going to come If we get past unintimidated as an emotion and switch that to no. I know I will learn something when. I'm there I know I will be given the tools I need to understand what's going on and I will feel like I belong. The wow will come. That's the part we've got on lock everybody. The wow will come.
Speaker 1:Is it fair to ask and I ask this as a musician, I granted a very business-driven sort of musician, but I think it's a good question to throw out there Is it fair that of our musicians, of our artists, that there's maybe more that's required of them now, as opposed to just that? To your point.
Speaker 1:You mentioned this. You said we deliver a Shostakovich symphony. Well, yeah, generations of us have been getting better and better and better and better at playing Shostakovich symphonies together, and so at some point, is there more that's required of us as the artist, to engage with those supporters, those users, those audience members, and how can we sell the benefit of that being part of the responsibility of a professional musician? Is that extra piece of it the first thing?
Speaker 3:that was coming to my mind as you were saying, that is, there is more required of all of us. There is also a lot more required of administrators too. So it's right back to the history we were talking about 40 years ago. They didn't have to be proficient and user experience research it's just harder for all of us. This goes right back to. We are all on the same team doing this together.
Speaker 3:The disservice is that it's not told to anybody. The end getting going right back to the systemic issues, and so it just feels like the more that's expected is the awareness and knowledge of all of this. I find not always, because there are some musicians who are recalcitrant, but by and large I think that's less and less the case. I see, and more and more, what I see are musicians who say I get it, I want our art to have a future, therefore we need supporters, and so that really starts to unlock like, well, what do we do to get there? And so to me, a lot of times when the awareness happens and we have these conversations, and even back at the California Symphony when I was running the organization, watching us go from half empty halls to sold out performances, and it's like. Even that's just a real learning for all of us together. Of course, the ensemble would rather play to a full house than a half empty house.
Speaker 3:This is a no brainer and just, but even just seeing, like the energy change and, of course, in the hall, but then on stage, the energy change and like, absolutely it's hard to have a conversation about that. These are, like you know, very intangible moments, but it's like when that's when it starts coming together and it's like, okay, I do get it, we do need each other. Yes, and maybe it isn't just arts for art's sake, because, wow, I feel more fulfilled when this house is erupting and applause when I'm done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's the community, it's the connection with the audience, which is something that Liz and I have talked about tons of times here. You know that's what we do art for right.
Speaker 1:But we forget. It's much easier if you're in an intimate setting. You know I think about this often that in chamber music it doesn't necessarily translate. Because you have that immediate responsibility, there's less of you. You are acutely aware of the energy of the audience. They're usually physically closer to your space.
Speaker 1:But for a very long time I sat on that stage as an orchestra member and I felt uncomfortable about the disconnect and I was convinced that all we were doing it for was ourselves, that we were like I'm having this experience, like there's just people sitting out there, but they're just people sitting out there, right.
Speaker 1:And that is the important shift, I think, for musician mindset and you've said this so brilliantly, aubrey, I don't think we'd heard this before, but Stephanie and I were just talking about this last week to the same effect that we have that hindsight bias and once we were aware of something, it's hard to remember what it was like to not be aware of it. But we have a lot of colleagues who probably still feel that disconnect for whatever reason. You know, there's so many reasons that you can feel that disconnect and just the inspiration to be more engaged in the organizations you play in, even as a sub, and I think that's an important thing to say too that the musician is valued no matter what, because their presence on stage creates the thing that's being shared with that audience, but the audience is experiencing that person too.
Speaker 3:I think what you said about chamber music is so true too, like you have to show up in that way for chamber music and then with the orchestra, you know, when you're one of 80 or however many people are on stage, then it is easier to be anonymized, and I think it encourages in a weird way this disconnect, or allows for it, like the setting allows for it more, maybe not encourages. And I will say also to your point of like, even when you show up as a sub, not to toot my own horn music music pun, I forget if this was like a year or two ago sometime.
Speaker 3:Well, after I had left the California Symphony, a substitute musician emailed me and said I forget why they had reached out, but they were like I just wanted to tell you I had played as a sub several times and I was like, oh yeah, I recognize that name and it's of course Bay Area, the freeway fill harmonics.
Speaker 3:The freelancers are so much of the orchestral just Bay Area scene here. And they were like, having played with everybody is different. When I showed up there in a good way and I was, I didn't expect it but in so many ways like the greatest compliment because I was like, oh my God, like I talk about audience, audience, audience all day long. And here was a musician who said, when I showed up, I felt like I belonged, yeah, and I was like, oh my God, everything makes sense, like if we create places of inclusivity and belonging and we're here working in the same direction. I don't know, I get really, you know, poetic about it, but like you can be a freelancer and absolutely be contributing in a meaningful way to everything we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, we've all had those experiences being freelancers and it's a lovely cycle that if you can build that inclusivity, then it impacts the musicians on stage, which then impacts the audience. They can feel the vibe. It's, you know, only positives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there are organizations where, even as a sub, you feel like you're a part of what's happening, and there's the opposite is true as well. But I know, I really noticed that. I noticed that energy, if not immediately, then pretty quickly. But it's often when you have an organization that's trying to innovate the way that they're doing business. You know, just like looking ahead, I mean being more engaged, so all-encompassing, right, but it's that's really what it comes down to from every aspect. You know, having that engagement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, aubrey, you have this book that's coming out in February. Could you give us a couple highlights?
Speaker 1:I mean, we got a sneak peek we should share.
Speaker 2:We were able to read a little bit about vertical integration of arts organizations and how we can incorporate these things like education, how we can incorporate those into the model so that arts organizations can be run more like businesses. So can you talk a little bit about vertical integration and what that means in the art space?
Speaker 3:Yeah, hearing you bring this up, I'm like right, this brings together so many things.
Speaker 1:We've already talked about this.
Speaker 3:This is great. This is great. Vertical integration this is another one of these like vocabulary words that is definitely not a classical music word, a business word, sure, but not even used that often. So to define it it is when an organization brings under one roof, sort of brings in house, components of the business or industry that would otherwise be operated under separate businesses, institutions. Okay, so what does that look like for us Education? So we've talked all about training and what's the typical model? You go to school to learn to play an instrument, and that is one institution. And then you join an orchestra or freelance, and that's a separate institution. But what happens for the people who don't want to play professionally but want to continue to play their instrument? Not a lot of opportunity for that kind of person. And I mean there are community orchestras. I would say that's the outlet that I can think of that exists for that type of person. Okay, so vertical integration and this is just one example would be to say we offer that as a revenue stream. Grown adults who have money to spend and want to continue this hobby pursuit at a high level to them. How do they get a great teacher? Could we bring that under our roof as a revenue stream.
Speaker 3:The artist gets paid, the organization takes a cut for the administrative aspects of it. There are several entrepreneurial musicians and I talk in the book and you read this of you know, at major orchestras LA Phil, Metropolitan Opera who are doing this on their own. And that's fine Entrepreneurial musicians all the way. They've got this great. But I'm interested to explore are there musicians who say, yeah, I see this, I see the opportunity there, I want extra money in my pocket. Could we broker this where the organization does all this administrative lift for me? Okay, so that's one, just one example of vertical integration. If anybody's hearing this and they're like absolutely not Aubrey that's okay, not everybody has to agree with this.
Speaker 3:But that's just one example. Let me give a business example and then I'll come back to another musical example. But businesses, amazon is like the king, king of vertical integration. So Amazon, oh gosh. Originally they had outside shipping and distribution right. It used to be through UPS or whoever they use.
Speaker 1:Back in that way, back when in the dark ages.
Speaker 3:I remember that and house over warehousing, shipping, distribution, right. Okay, we call that Amazon Prime. Same thing with web hosting. They used to host their website I don't know somewhere else, and then they developed their own internal capability to host websites and then they said, oh, we could market this to others. That became Amazon web services, and AWS is now, I think, the largest hosting platform of the entire internet of if they're not number one, then they're number two, they're big. Okay. Then they started manufacturing their own products. They call that Amazon basics, right. So I could go on and on. But that's what Amazon does. Like I said, they are the king of.
Speaker 3:It used to be separate institutions, separate operational entities. They bring all this stuff in house. So that's what I'm trying to say. Or like how do we start to peel back? Like what are the things that we take for granted as needing to be separate? That, if we bring it in, is there a way that for an organization, it does bring in additional revenue streams? Okay, so then I said we come back to music. So another one is we talked about the lack of training for our offstage talent.
Speaker 3:Yes, I wanted to ask you about that we do have a growing number of masters of arts administration programs and things like that. So that's great. Those programs exist and that is fine and that is serving our industry better than 20, 30 years ago, when these programs didn't exist. Great. Is it fixing everything? Is it serving everybody who wants an offstage role? Definitely not. So I think there's opportunity for organizations to offer administrative training and charge for it. Could that be a great way to then who we hire?
Speaker 3:I think there's just a lot there, because what I do see also, even as I worked over the years with different interns that come from these masters of arts administration programs, I mean, this is true across so many industries, but what they learned in the classroom is different than them putting it into practice. And even among really smart, motivated, driven students and young professionals, I see the gap of like they can think about data, maybe, but they do not know how to pull the report from the database. Okay, that's a tactical training element that we need to fix, because you're not of much help to me If you can't actually extract the data you're talking about theoretical, so right there's just bless our hearts by the way.
Speaker 2:Can we?
Speaker 3:build in programs like that. And then there are organizations already doing this. So anybody who's like, wow, she is off her rocker. No, no, no, no, no, no. Organizations are doing it. Beth Morrison projects is a great example. They have their producers Academy. They're known for bringing new work to the stage. So how do you do it? How do you go from A to B, commissioning a new work to bringing it to the stage, to getting it funded, to working out all the financials of who gets paid and who does what and did it? You know like they teach that. Okay, great.
Speaker 3:They have since developed smaller programs to like kind of like the sprints or I don't know what they call it, but like here's the finance three day course. Then over time, they got that funded by I think it was Melon Foundation, but one of the big foundations gave them this like multi million, multi year grant or something like that. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was a lot of money, is the point and really allowed them to more institutionalize this. So now they're getting funding from a grantor, funding in terms of revenue stream from the participants. They've now made it a gateway I talked about gateway to hiring, a gateway to a paid fellowship, internship, and the people who participate are getting paid for that fellowship.
Speaker 3:This is not unpaid labor. I believe in paying musicians for their labor. I believe in paying offstage talent for their labor, even at an internship role. So all this is to say like it's just become for them this really significant part of their institution and how they do business. Are there ways we can make some money and bring this in house Like I am all for those things. How do we make more money?
Speaker 1:I mean the idea of offering some sort of professional training in house and having multiple organizations participate in something like that. Then the possibilities there are so endless. I want to ask you a question that's kind of leading into this. Okay, so I am a huge fan of the concept of social entrepreneurship and I think that there's a big place for entrepreneurship within the arts, and a while back I remember saving it because I was like, yes, she's starting to talk about it. You had a rumination online about LLC versus nonprofit or running as a for-profit versus a nonprofit.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering if, in the work that you're doing right now with the book and you're talking about this vertical integration concept, there are these new, I think services and or products that are being imagined to be offered and developed. Is there a path, or do you feel like you're further along the path, of conceptualizing a way for arts organizations to become for-profit organizations?
Speaker 3:I get asked this more and more. This is sort of stream of consciousness. I'll just tell you the different ways I've thought about this. The end is I don't know that we can be for-profit. I think people are sometimes surprised to hear me say that, especially because I'm all like business and I want more money and all of this. But I don't know, because the biggest expense we have is our people. This is true for most organizations, most companies. Like.
Speaker 3:Your labor expense, no matter if you're making widgets or producing orchestra concerts is your people, musicians and administrative staff. We do not bring in enough earned revenue to cover those costs. We just don't. That's one of the big reasons we're non-profits in the first place. We have to fundraise to fill in that gap. So if we were to become for-profit, it's not going to come from earned revenue, it's just not. I don't think I know there's going to be somebody out there who's like yuck, you stream it and you stream it to a million people and they all pay. Yeah, if we stream it to a million people and they start paying, great, show me how that would make that happen, because even Berlin Phil is not making that happen.
Speaker 3:That kind of sale, again, no shade, but they're a big global brand doing this already, but I just don't see the path in earned revenue to pay for what we do. So then it begs the question okay, then what are these other revenue streams? And then that's where you were saying, liz, I think of like, okay, if you're talking about vertical integration, could we do this? Maybe, maybe. I don't know if we really were able to build these things out, and maybe that's the answer. If we really were able to make that, it would have to be a massive. I mean, we're now talking over 50% of our revenue as an institution would have to come from that work which then starts to get into. It's just so fundamentally different in terms of the products we're offering. Could we do it? Maybe? That would not be a fast shift, that would take years to build.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially for the largest of the organizations. I mean operating budgets of a Philadelphia orchestra, for example. Like is wild.
Speaker 3:wild to envision, yeah, and as you're building out those programs. You need more people to run those programs, so it's in your adding labor expense. So I don't know, maybe, but yeah, I do get really interested in what are the alternate revenue streams. Could we not be so dependent on giving? Or could we keep giving because it like keep the donation component and stay nonprofit? Nonprofit doesn't mean you don't make money, nonprofit is just the tax status. We could still turn a profit and invest that back into the endowment or other initiatives we want or raises for everybody here here.
Speaker 1:you know like so yeah, it's so fascinating to think about and, yeah, the possible solutions are far down the road. I have this thing about the concept of needing to be for lack of a better word and maybe there's a way to reframe this, so I'm throwing it out there needing someone's charity in order to do what we do that I always have had trouble with. I've always felt like man, I have so much more ownership over the thing I do and I'd rather it be like wow, I value this thing that you offer so much that I will pay you to do it at this level. You know, I'll pay you this much. This patron says, instead of it being this charitable donation. Like you're worth this much, you know, like it's, it's that's that's the part that I'm like how can that be reframed?
Speaker 1:But it's, it's a long way away, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think you're absolutely right. There's a lot of systemic, entrenched issues with philanthropy as a whole, not just in the arts, but this idea that we are so beholden to donors and big donors call the shots and are we worthy, and there's just so much like goes back to like colonialism and some of these like things that as a nation we're really kind of exploring and unpacking together, and so I really hate that kind of philanthropy. I hate going to ask for donors where it's this weird power dynamic and like you have to be all mousy about it, but instead, when there's values alignment, which you mentioned, that changes things, then you're talking to more like would you be an investor in what we're doing.
Speaker 3:Or but in our peers expect returns, but the return is not financial in this case. It's emotional impact in the community or you know some other currency. But for me and maybe this is how it would be reframe I don't think that the donation piece like in and of itself is what's broken. It's what's like the undercurrent behind that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot tied up in musicians having patrons and feeling unworthy, feeling like we can't do it on our own. And so that's the big piece. I think in the discomfort with nonprofits, like no one's going to pay us outright for these services, so we need donors to legitimize what we're doing with our lives and for a living Maybe that's just a deep thing.
Speaker 3:That's so true for hundreds of years, right, yes, right Back to the beginning, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, starving artists. Yeah. So, aubrey, your book is coming out in February. Where can people learn more about it? Where can they contact you? Where can they preorder your book?
Speaker 3:Thank, you for asking that AubreyBurghourcom slash book.
Speaker 2:That's where you need to go.
Speaker 3:Perfect, you can preorder. This fall we're going to roll out some preorder incentives. How do you get a signed copy if anybody wants that kind of stuff? So it's all coming, but AubreyBurghourcom slash book and it's there right now so anybody can go learn more. Check it out and, yes, preorder please.
Speaker 1:If this conversation has been of interest to you, then you will love the book if you like what we're talking about here, and if it's not necessary to say, maybe it's worth saying anyway that for those of us in the musician side of things we started by talking about it us versus them, old school mentality that I think there's a lot of work being done to sort of erode that and kind of bridge the gap between offstage and onstage. So, as musicians, I think there's something very inspiring about having an ownership over the organizations in which you work and understanding how they can grow and how they can evolve, because that's where our work comes from. And so, instead of that feeling of like throwing your hands up and saying, well, they don't have enough money to pay us, you know, like that's a bummer, I guess I'm going to have to find some other job. Instead of that, it's more of a proactive approach of saying, okay, how can we be a part of this too? And I think the more that that gap is bridged, I think the better for everybody. Right?
Speaker 1:Agree, 100%. What about anything else you're up to? Do you do coach? What do you do like besides writing books these days?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are a couple of ways for people who want more to get more. I launched earlier this year a online community, so that's also on my website, aribergarracom slash community and what I love about it is we have members who are administrators and artists and we're talking about coming together. We're talking about bridging the gap, and I created the space for I say arts professionals, and that means everybody, all of us and we do professional development events, we do networking events, we do open office hours with me and, like I said, it started earlier this year. So that's a good option for people who want a space where we can have more of these conversations, want to meet more like minded, forward thinking people on stage, offstage, all of that. So everybody is welcome, very awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been lovely. I feel motivated lit up.
Speaker 2:Inspired do some, I don't know. Arts advocacy.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you both for doing what you do. It's, it's. It's been a pleasure, Absolutely.
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Speaker 1:Our theme music was written and produced by JP Wogerman and is performed by Stefan myself.
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Speaker 1:Thanks again for listening. Let's talk soon.
