In Sunday’s (8/31) Baltimore Sun, Tim Smith speaks with Fred Bronstein, who began as director of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in June, after serving, most recently, as president of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Some excerpts from the interview: “The core business of the conservatory is education. You still have to come out of a conservatory a great player, but I would argue that that’s not enough. You have to be developing skills to create your own path and be successful in different ways.… The schools of Johns Hopkins are independent … but Peabody is in a position to own the idea of interdisciplinary use of music—music and medicine, music in the liberal arts…. As for innovation, I will use an orchestra analogy. The core business of an orchestra is the classical subscription series. But you also have to embrace series of other things to create audiences and resources.… Half of my time as an orchestra CEO was spent fundraising. When you believe in an institution, I think the fundraising is easy. Donors … are your stockholders. You have to think of them like that. People support excellence. That is the thing people respond to most.”
Posted September 4, 2014
