“Ask anyone in the orchestra and they’ll tell you: You just can’t be shy while playing the trumpet,” writes Lance Nixon in Monday’s (6/6) Missoulian (Missoula, Mont.). “ ‘You’ve got to have a lot of fire in the belly and be very much an extrovert in terms of how you play,’ says John Driscoll [who] was hired as executive director of the Missoula Symphony Association in 1999” and was previously principal trumpet in the orchestra. “He still blows the orchestra’s horn in his catch-all position that involves marketing, fundraising, board development, human resources and developing a shared vision for the orchestra…. The audience has steadily grown … partly through the musicianship that Music Director and Conductor Darko Butorac has cultivated since being hired in 2007…. ‘That’s a tough thing to sustain but since that year, we’ve been seeing 80 percent capacity on a regular basis, which is amazing,’ Driscoll said…. ‘From a contribution standpoint, the majority of our contributions come from folks of relatively modest means,’ Driscoll said … ‘I really feel strongly that regardless of the size of the community that you live in, every town deserves great art.’ ”
Posted June 8, 2016
