Opening Address to Delegates

As everyone knows, this conference is entitled Forward Together. The pooling of knowledge, the sharing of ideas, the solidarity of colleagues who are experiencing the same as you — these have been our superpower through these last two years of unprecedented uncertainty. The answer, we have learned, does not lie straight ahead, in your screen, or your phone, or your strategic plan, or your budget, or the path you thought you knew — but in turning to your left and your right and reaching out for the wisdom and experience of others.

This field is an amazing place to work, and has been home for me now for more than 25 years. It’s not always an easy place to work, because our business models are often hard and we are fighting constantly for a seat at the table of public attention. But it is a nourishing place to work, because the people of our field are dedicated, empathetic and supportive even in the face of the most extraordinary challenges of their own. We got through these last two years because of every single person in this hall. You found hope where there was little to be had, answers when there were none, and music where there was silence. It is a tremendous privilege for all of us at the League to serve you.

In the excitement of being together again, it’s tempting to characterize this moment as a time of recovery and of regaining normality. But as we gather here with such joy to see each other again, we are nonetheless reminded on a daily basis that the world around us is anything but normal. And that trickles down to our field, where it’s clear that patterns of behavior we thought we knew have in fact changed for ever. So there are many questions:

· What attendance patterns will our audiences settle into?

· Will philanthropy hold at the same levels of the last two years?

· Can the racial reckoning finally change the trajectory of our field for ever?

· What aspects of collaborative pandemic culture must we make permanent practice?

· Can record-breaking digital engagement translate to in-person attendance?

· What will be the new normal for office working and how do we retain staff in the current environment?

· And…how do we even make plans with so much uncertainty?

These are the kind of questions that we will attempt to answer in the coming days. And you can be sure there will be no easy answers, given that we are also in a moment of intense global turmoil — in geo-politics, in the economy, in the fragility of democracy and civil rights, in climate change, and in the continuing persistence of racial inequity. The stakes are simply higher than ever, and the role of the arts both in bringing comfort, helping us make sense of the world, and standing up for social justice, is more powerful than ever.

As I think about the years ahead, and I try to make sense in my own head of where we are, I keep coming back to three defining issues that I believe will fuel our artistic creativity and our financial success. All of them are reflected in our programming this week.

The first is about building a new audience that’s not just from the same demographic as the current one. Colleen Dilenschneider recently showed us in some powerful data that our bucket is extremely leaky, and the speed of replacement isn’t fast enough to replenish it. Meanwhile, concert halls may be viewed as less welcoming to new and diverse audiences than other performing art forms. For orchestras, these two data points are the melting of our polar ice cap. There’s no time to be lost, and the exit from COVID represents a historic opportunity to welcome new people into our halls with new forms of artistic creativity, and adjust our course to the future.

The second is about the “the promise of diversity.” Many of us will never forget those words uttered by the late Elijah Cummings at the 2016 League conference in Baltimore, and they have never felt more important. I feel like I want to state it even more unequivocally: there is no excellence without diversity. To deny that is to admit that classical music is a white art form created for white audiences. Personally, I can’t accept that, and I think we need to show the world that none of us can accept it. This does not mean disparaging the inspiration of where we have come from. But it does mean defining the place we are going to as richer and more inviting — and it does mean going there faster.

The third is about relevance and community meaning, which here in Los Angeles we see writ large. YOLA, this marvelous collective of young people whose lives are being changed through music, is deeply embedded in the pysche of the LA Phil, and just about any board member and donor to this organization can talk to you about it. The fantastic new Beckmen YOLA Center that a couple hundred of us were lucky enough to see last night, is a physical manifestation of a community promise, that in this organization, is integral to the sustaining of a great orchestra. I find that an inspirational idea.

In the last two years orchestras have continued to produce great music under the most trying circumstances. Even a global pandemic can’t derail the incredible artistic quality of American orchestras, which truthfully has never been higher, or run deeper. But COVID also revealed what we all know to be true: which is that American orchestras — from the largest to the smallest — are the most creative in the world, and capable of turning on a dime when circumstances demand it, as they just did. And circumstances still demand it, in this most abnormal environment, as we tackle those three critical pillars — building a new audience, moving faster on inclusion, and making community relevance our permanent preoccupation.

Over the coming years, we’ll focus our work at the League around those three interlocked markers of our future success. We will support you and your organizations as you all tackle the challenges with the same brilliance and sheer heart that brought our field through COVID. The answers are out there, and you will hear many of them this week and be inspired by each other’s progress. And we will be there to support you and champion your successes!

Thank you all for being here — it means the world to see you.