SFCM Announces Center for Innovative Leadership
As The New York Times writes, SFCM has “emphasized risk-taking and an expansive view of the field.” Deeply committed to cultivating a sense of entrepreneurial spirit among its student body, SFCM will now expand its culture of exploration with rapid-fire programs designed to empower arts professionals.
November 12, 2019
Ute and William K. Bowes Center for Performing Arts
As The New York Times writes, San Francisco Conservatory of Music has “emphasized risk-taking and an expansive view of the field.” Deeply committed to cultivating a sense of entrepreneurial spirit among its student body, SFCM will now expand its culture of exploration with rapid-fire programs designed to empower arts professionals. The SFCM Center for Innovative Leadership will welcome its first cohort in January 2021 to the new Ute and William K. Bowes, Jr. Center for Performing Arts, a comprehensive arts hub created through a transformative $46.4 million gift in 2018.
“SFCM is built on an expansive and inclusive vision for the future,” said President David H. Stull. “To make that vision a reality, the industry needs committed and energetic arts leaders with the tools to lead their institutions toward artistic and fiscal growth. The Center for Innovative Leadership will contribute major resources and top-tier faculty and mentors to enhance the talent pipeline for arts administration.”
Arts administrators, ranging from entry-level professionals to C-suite executives and board chairs, will be welcomed to SFCM’s learning lab to expand their sense of opportunity and capacity for action. Stull expects this wellspring of creativity will inspire undergraduate and graduate students as well — with the option to audit these professional courses, students curious about arts administration will be able to immerse themselves in subjects far beyond the standard music curriculum.
The center will be led by its Founding Executive Director and SFCM Vice President of Strategic Communications, a role created for Aubrey Bergauer. Recognized by the San Francisco Chronicle as a “dynamic and innovative administrator,” Bergauer is an orchestra executive and management consultant with a proven ability to find creative solutions for arts institutions. Her data-driven approach as Executive Director of the California Symphony catapulted the orchestra onto the national stage, as it was strategically transitioned from a near-closure ensemble to “the most forward-looking music organization around,” per the San Jose Mercury News. In her five-year tenure, California Symphony doubled its audience, nearly quadrupled its donor base, and increased its operating budget by 50%, all while balancing budgets and eliminating a portion of past accumulated debt.
“As I established my consultancy, it quickly became clear that the demand for innovative and evidence-based executive guidance existed on a large scale,” said Bergauer. “When David offered me an opportunity to partner with him and assemble a team to address field-wide issues with SFCM’s substantial resources, I knew this was an undeniable chance to make an impact beyond the organizations I’m able to personally advise. By focusing our energies on developing executive leadership and good governance, we can influence the state of the industry in a more widely distributed way.”
Aubrey Bergauer / Photo by The Morrisons
In keeping with Bergauer’s trademark data-driven approach, the Center for Innovative Leadership will track progress toward industry-wide goals, such as diversifying the administrative talent pipeline. Internally, both recruitment and curriculum will champion equity and inclusion. Faculty and advisory board members will be cultivated across genders and ethnicities, and progress toward increasing diverse representation among industry leadership will be measured to ensure accountability. Bergauer’s own appointment hints at the type of administrator SFCM hopes to nurture.
“Aubrey is emblematic of everything we’re trying to achieve here,” said Stull. “From running regional orchestras to advising powerhouses like LA Opera and NPR, her ability to deftly move from big-picture ideation to decisive action has captured the attention of the industry. Our profession needs more leaders like her: activators who are able to conceive bold ideas and inspire stakeholders to bring those ideas to fruition. Under her direction, SFCM hopes to foster a new breed of change-makers who will drive our industry forward.”
The Center for Innovative Leadership will be nestled among the concert halls, classrooms, conference facilities, and guest suites of the Bowes Center, which opens in fall 2020. Curricular models will be designed to address the needs of multiple administrative constituencies. In June 2021, aspiring arts managers will enroll in the center’s flagship offering: Project ADAM (Audience Development and Advancement of Music) Seminar for Early Career Professionals, which will inform and empower rising leaders at the entry point to the talent pipeline. A series of alternating Level-Up Workshops will take place each January, with a cohort of first-time executive directors convening in January 2021, and a group of revenue-generating professionals in fundraising and marketing roles meeting the following year. In September 2021, orchestra and opera board leaders will have the opportunity to learn from distinguished board heads — and each other — in the Board Chair Forum.
“Conservatories typically instruct students with a single-minded focus on winning a job at a top orchestra or opera company,” said Bergauer. “SFCM is expanding that field of vision, creating options not only for its students, but for the entire arts management pipeline. By addressing every facet of industry training, SFCM and the Center for Innovative Leadership will ensure that the quality and preparation offstage matches the talent onstage.”
For those following SFCM’s trajectory since Stull began as president in 2013, this bold expansion of the conservatory’s offerings is a logical progression. SFCM has created an inclusive culture that reflects the cooperative experimentation of the Bay Area’s tech hotbed, making it a natural fit for a center that will encourage creative exploration and cultural intelligence.
“We want to attract diverse and inventive participants who have the intellectual capacity to be high-performing leaders and empower them to execute bold ideas,” said Stull. “The SFCM Center for Innovative Leadership will be a home for pioneers, shaping savvy leaders who are collaborative, curious, and comfortable setting — then breaking — new paces for the industry.”
Orchestra Maverick Aubrey Bergauer Goes Solo
“Aubrey Bergauer is the dynamic and innovative administrator whose five-year tenure as executive director of the California Symphony in Walnut Creek helped revitalize the orchestra’s audience base and bottom line…” The data-driven leader will launch a consultancy intended to replicate her game-changing strategies across a broad range of arts organizations.
June 26, 2019
Photo by The Morrisons
Credited by Southwest Magazine with “redefining the classical concert experience as we know it,” departing Executive Director Aubrey Bergauer has catapulted the California Symphony onto the national stage. Outlets ranging from the Wall Street Journal and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to San Francisco Chronicle, Symphony Magazine, and NPR have turned their attention to Walnut Creek and the industry-leading efforts of the California Symphony team. The orchestra, which had been contemplating closure before Bergauer came aboard, has experienced a remarkable turn of fortunes during her five-year tenure.
That change in the bottom line is due to the deliberate and adventuresome partnership between Bergauer, Music Director Donato Cabrera, and Symphony Board President Bill Armstrong, who have collectively embraced a data-driven mission. Taking a cue from neighboring tech hotbeds, this approach has focused on user experience research, iterative design, and perhaps most daringly, transparency with audiences and the public. In an industry with a tendency to bemoan the state of audience attendance and demographics, California Symphony has punched through with actual solutions.
“As a person on a mission to change the narrative for orchestras, I have been exceedingly lucky to be able to partner with Donato and Bill, along with our fantastic staff and board,” said Bergauer. “Fueled by our dogmatic focus on patron retention, the California Symphony is now nationally known for a concert experience that welcomes newcomers and loyalists alike. I’m confident I am leaving the organization in a position of strength.”
Hailed as “the most forward-looking music organization around” by the San Jose Mercury News, the symphony’s accomplishments over the past few years read like an orchestra board’s wish list:
• doubled the audience, increasing annual tickets sold by 97%
• achieved a first-time audience retention rate triple the industry average
• increased subscribers by 42%, with 19/20 subscriptions tracking up 21% year over year
• grew donor households by 180%
• more than doubled the number of performances offered per year
• increased operating budget by 50%
• expanded performances beyond Walnut Creek to Napa Valley, Concord, Oakland, and Berkeley
• balanced or surplus budgets in 4 of 5 years, while eliminating a portion of past accumulated debt
• secured $1 million gift for endowment, the largest in the orchestra’s history
In a recent profile, the San Francisco Chronicle described Bergauer as “a quick-talking dynamo [who] bristles with statistics, ideas, and sharp new perspectives on the challenges facing symphony orchestras in the 21st century.” Indeed, California Symphony has been at the forefront of many industry trends, spearheading initiatives that inspire other orchestras to follow suit:
• first professional orchestra to make a public commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion across staff and board members, in addition to musicians and programming
• committed to 20% of programming by women, people of color, living composers (vs. 2% nationwide average)
• achieved 46% programming by women, POC, and living composers in upcoming 19/20 season
• first orchestra to collaborate with the band Postmodern Jukebox
• created “Symphony Surround” benefit, placing audience members among the orchestra
• moved to anonymous review process (inspired by blind auditions) for acclaimed Young American Composer-in-Residence program, which led to selection of current resident composer Katherine Balch
• 50% increase in Latinx audiences, driven by bilingual education and advertising
Music Director Donato Cabrera noted, “Aubrey’s groundbreaking leadership has transformed the California Symphony, dramatically increasing our audience through enriching concert experiences of inclusive and diverse programming. Our work to honor Aubrey’s legacy here will continue to set the standard of how an orchestra can be an integral, meaningful, and contemporary facet of our cultural landscape.”
Board President Bill Armstrong agreed, “As much as we’d love to keep Aubrey, we understand that change-makers thrive on new challenges, and we are grateful for the extraordinary growth we’ve experienced under her leadership. She has made an indelible impact on the California Symphony, and I’m confident she will have great success as she brings her expertise to a broader array of arts organizations.”
Bergauer began devising strategies in the realms of audience development, revenue generation, and the creation of inclusive cultures over a decade of work at Seattle cultural institutions, including the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, and the Bumbershoot Festival. The California Symphony’s openness to collaborative experimentation proved the ideal incubator for these approaches, including Bergauer’s signature Long Haul Method, which will now be shared with an array of arts institutions via consultancy.
“What we’ve done at California Symphony is extraordinary,” said Bergauer. “It is also replicable. Nothing is limited to this market or this community, and the proof of concept has been authenticated. I’m looking forward to deploying the strategies tested here to empower arts organizations from a variety of regions and budgets. While I certainly intend to return to running an orchestra one day, I’m eager to make an impact beyond one organization in this critical moment for our industry.”
Bergauer’s tenure concludes on August 15; the California Symphony’s 2019/20 season will open on September 14 with an “Iconic Beethoven” program. The wide-ranging season will also include Lyric for Strings by George Walker, the first African-American composer to win a Pulitzer Prize, a flute concerto by Kevin Puts, the commissioned world premiere of Katherine Balch’s Cantata for Orchestra and 3 Voices, and a Gabriela Lena Frank vocal work that imagines Frida Kahlo returning from the dead during the Día de los Muertos festival. The recruitment and selection committee for the new executive director has been formed, and the search is underway.