A year ago I attended an invigorating Chorus America
conference here in Seattle. For those
who don’t know about Chorus America, it is a non-profit that provides services to
choral groups of all kinds—professional, volunteer, children’s, you name it—on
how to stay viable and healthy. This can
include advice from experts on board development, marketing, recruiting
singers, and more.
At one conference session I learned that for arts
organizations, self-protection or fear of competition from like arts groups,
such as other choruses in our case, is deadly.
It kills growth. Surprisingly,
when similar arts groups collaborate in all kinds of ways, not just in
performances, growth can happen for all.
And there is research to back that up.
For example, people who attend multiple arts events tend
to come back time after time to performances.
One study of seven opera companies in Philadelphia showed that although
only a small percentage of their audiences attended performances by more than
one opera company, 85% of those were repeat attenders; in other words, they came
back again and again. The patrons who
only attended a performance by one opera company were much less likely to
return.
So these Philadelphia opera companies decided to try
something daring. They advertised each
other’s seasons on their web sites, complete with a map pointing the way all
the opera companies. They looked
competition in the eye! And a funny
thing happened. Competition
blinked! Audiences for all the companies
went up! It was a rising tide that
floated all boats.
With this in mind, three of my fellow choral conducting
colleagues and I who operate in the suburbs east of Seattle: Bellevue Chamber
Chorus, Cascadian Chorale, Kirkland Choral Society, and my own Master Chorus
Eastside, have begun working together in a more dedicated way. For the first time we have listed one another’s
seasons on our web sites. We are
exploring commissioning a new composition to be premiered in a collaborative
performance by our four choirs. And we
have ramped up just a bit a shared experience that we’ve carried on for years
called Eastside Sings, which is a sing along of a major work on four Tuesday evenings
in July, each Sing led by one of the four conductors. We all also belong to the Greater Seattle
Choral Consortium, which works to promote the choral art in the larger Puget
Sound metropolitan area. We held an
amazingly successful choral festival last fall.
And we also advertise all member performances in member’s programs. We end up blanketing the area! It’s a wonderful way to build relationships,
help one another and boost the choral arts at the same time.
So be a choral arts supporter! Here are web site addresses for all four of
us:
Bellevue Chamber Chorus
Cascadian Chorale
Kirkland Choral Society
Master Chorus Eastside
Attend performances by these fine choirs, or by choirs in
your own neighborhood if you live somewhere else.
It’s a small beginning.
But we hope the impact will be big!
Dr. Linda Gingrich
Artistic director and conductor
Master Chorus Eastside
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