We look for people who sound great, and who are sounds unique. Their playing has to have some kind of personality in it. They also have to have, usually, very strong chamber music backgrounds. And then to two other things that they have to be skilled at, as as communication,. So it does not help the orchestra to have somebody grumpy or or silent - because it's an orchestra of ideas as well as playi.
Our ears perk up when we hear about different systems practicing self-management. That was the case with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, a Grammy-award winning group that rehearses and performs without a formal conductor. Instead, the orchestra decentralizes power and leadership among its members, who rotate in between positions and treat each other as equals. Collaborative decision-making; multi-filled roles; shared ownership; clear feedback agreements—Orpheus embodies the very practices we love to talk about.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans ask James Wilson, a cellist with Orpheus and one of the ensemble’s three artistic directors, and Alexander Scheirle, Orpheus’s executive director, about the group’s democratic underpinnings and how it’s experimented with emergence for more than 50 years.
Learn more about Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at orpheusnyc.org.
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