Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#312: Michael Sachs (Musician) (pt. 2 of 2)
Today we released part two of our interview with Michael Sachs. He has a portfolio career at the highest levels of classical music: he’s in his 37th year as the principal trumpet of The Cleveland Orchestra, he's the Music Director of the Strings Music Festival, an active soloist, author, instrument designer, and he's on the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Though our interview mainly focuses on his entrepreneurial activities as a music director and musician outside of The Cleveland Orchestra, Michael offers a wealth of information to anyone aspiring to become a professional musician! https://michaelsachs.com/
Hi Nick Petrella here. This episode is sponsored by Volkweins Music, a full-service shop that's been meeting the musical needs of musicians for over 135 years. They offer a huge selection of instruments, accessories, music and more. They also have an unmatched instrument repair department with some of the most experienced technicians in the business. For years they've serviced my personal and school instruments, and their attention to detail is why I and professional musicians from around the globe trust Volkweins to service their gear. Head over to volkweinssmusic. com to see what they can do for you. That's V-O-L-K-W-E-I-N-S music. com, helping people discover music. Since 1888.
Announcer:Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise.
Nick Petrella:And I'm Nick Petrella. We're very excited to have Michael Sachs as our guest today. He has a portfolio career at the highest levels of classical music. He's in his 37th year as the principal trumpet of the Cleveland Orchestra, the music director of the Strings Music Festival, he's an active soloist, author, instrument designer and he's on the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music. There's much more to Michael's bio than we can read here, so we'll link to his website as well as those of the Cleveland Orchestra and the Strings Music Festival. With Michael's background, we could cover a wide variety of topics, but since we focus on arts entrepreneurship, a large part of our conversation today is going to be about his experiences as a music director and musician outside of the Cleveland Orchestra. Michael, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us today.
Michael Sachs:Thank you very much for having me. Nick and Andy, it's a pleasure to be with you.
Andy Heise:Have you had to learn? Have you been required to?
Michael Sachs:learn any new skills along the way music or entrepreneurship or business, nonprofit skills that maybe was new to you in this role. A couple things off the top of my head Again. This kind of synthesized a lot of things that I was already doing. I mean, for instance, I had never conducted an orchestra before I was up in Steamboat but I had conducted a brass wind class at CIM every week where I conducted pretty much every standard piece of repertoire over about 30 years prior. So I'd conducted a lot, just never in that environment. So that was new.
Michael Sachs:Finding my way as a conductor and learning that skill set and honing that skill set, working with a board, working with an executive director and budgets and certain parameters that they're going to put in place and figuring out, you know, was it borrow from Peter to pay Paul or borrow from Paul to pay Peter, whatever that is. I mean you know figuring out. You know making those decisions together with them was very interesting, learning from them, you know. Just learning with a budget. I mean I always loved math and I always loved the idea of different puzzle pieces and putting together puzzles and I had done a number of different brass events where I brought together a large number of people from a lot of different sources and had to overlap a lot of different schedules. So I'm used to kind of these Rubik's Cube solving A lot of logistics.
Michael Sachs:A lot of logistic orientation to that. So again it just kind of synthesized and brought everything together into one platform for me to work with the festival. But also I was very lucky that I had a staff that had been there for a while, right, that knew the Steamboat audience and could help guide me, yep, and now there's a lot of mutual trust that I now understand them, while that knew the Steamboat audience and could help guide me, and now there's a lot of mutual trust that I now understand them, they understand me, and we've kind of forged kind of a new avenue together with all this. And it's kind of the best way for me to describe it is kind of like I've had an executive MBA course up there. Sure, is really what that feels like Totally.
Andy Heise:Yeah, I mean, I don't know if. Is it public knowledge what the budget for that sort of an event is? It's okay if we don't need to go there.
Michael Sachs:I don't know exactly, then don't.
Andy Heise:I don't know if I can share that, so maybe it's better.
Michael Sachs:I don't.
Andy Heise:I was just going to make the illusion that it's like running in whatever million-dollar enterprise over an eight-week period.
Michael Sachs:The Strings Music Festival over the summer is a lot of other components besides mine. Mine is just the music director series, which is my eight concerts. There are also another series that our artistic admin in Steamboat, katie, runs, which usually has a string quartet come in. One of our founders and a former executive director was very close with Van Cliburn, so the Van Cliburn competition sends their gold medal winner to us the year of the competition and then in the off years we get other medal winners. So there's always a Van Cliburn medalist doing a recital, gotcha.
Michael Sachs:And then there are some other more kind of cross genre, more, you know, like classical kind of stuff, yeah, other things like that. And then there are also other concerts under, I guess, different tempo series is what it used to be called. But you have rock, pop, jazz, country, bluegrass. Any of that kind of stuff is under a whole other umbrella which happens throughout the summer. Sure, so you can have a Melissa Etheridge, you can have. I saw, let's see Crosby, stills and Nash all individually. Over the years Kenny Loggins has come up, boz Skaggs, arturo Sandoval. I mean many, many different people have come up from all different genres.
Nick Petrella:But you're not hiring them. You're hiring the musicians, right? No?
Michael Sachs:I don't have anything to do with any of the other series besides mine, Although this next summer with Morgan James, who I guess was with Postmodern Jukebox, Ms James is coming up and doing a Memphis Soul concert and I'm putting together an orchestra from the players who are going to be there for Rhapsody in Blue concert the night before. Oh nice, and we're going to stick around and do some orchestral stuff with her. That'll be great. So there is some cross-pollination with some of that. But there was one time there was a Beatles group, one of the Beatles cover bands that came in and we put that together and I got to play Penny Lane, which for me is always one of my all-time greatest things I ever get to play Cool.
Nick Petrella:So when you're looking at hiring musicians either at the festival or collaborators for other ensembles, are there other factors you consider beyond musicianship?
Michael Sachs:Oh, first and foremost, when hiring somebody, I kind of look at myself as a mad chemist in many ways, bringing all these different people together from these different groups. Some of it okay. Let me back up for a second. A lot of playing together in any ensemble is chemistry, especially in smaller chamber groups. So it has to be people that are of like mind creatively or close enough. They need to be team players. They need to have the same kind of droll and just kind of playing half-heartedly and, you know, just seem like they want to be anywhere, but on stage at that point.
Michael Sachs:No idea what you're talking about and that radiates to the audience. The audience feels that.
Nick Petrella:Oh, for sure.
Michael Sachs:When musicians are committed and they're enthusiastic and they're playing their hearts out, they can be playing literally anything and if you're playing with a conviction, the audience will receive that message and it's a two-way street. And to me that's one of the most important things is having those kind of players. And the way I do this is that a lot of times I'll have, if I'm creating, say, a piano quintet, so basically a string quartet and piano, I'll have a couple mainstay players and a few other people in mind and a program and maybe a couple programs jotted down. And I'll start with the main players, I'll get them together and then I'll say who else would you like to work with? And a lot of times they come back and say, well, who do you have in mind? And we'll play that game for a little bit. And a lot of times it's the same people. And because I want people to work with other people that they either love to work with or have always wanted to work with. So that's my first question who do you want to work with?
Michael Sachs:So that when people are coming from their jobs, where they don't get to choose necessarily who they work with, they're schlepping out to Colorado, they're coming away from their family, they're coming away from their job.
Michael Sachs:I want them to come up to a place where they're going to work with people they like and they're going to have a great time musically and personally, and they play something they want to play. So I'm gearing the programming toward that also. So there's a feeling of ownership, there's a feeling of buy-in, that it's a mutual thing. It's not just I'm going to say here's what you're playing, here's who you're playing it with and here's the date Do it or not? I mean, it's not a binary equation, it's not that kind of thing. I feel like I have found that when you include people in the creative dialogue of creating the program and the personnel, you end up with a much more organic group that's going to want to play together and work together and the result is going to be much more positive. So that's that's really at the heart of what I try to create at the festival.
Nick Petrella:So it's a collaborative approach really.
Michael Sachs:Co-creation, oh, very, very collaborative, absolutely.
Andy Heise:So, moving away from the music director position, as Nick mentioned in the intro, you've contributed to the design of instruments over the years. How did you get into that work and what role does collaboration between the musician and the manufacturers play in that creative process of designing those instruments?
Michael Sachs:Well, I've been very fortunate that Conselm were the makers of Bach trumpets, which are the trumpets that I've always used throughout my career that they invited me first this was maybe about oh, about 15 years ago. First this was maybe about 15 years ago They'd just gone through some labor unrest, they had a strike. It was a very turbulent time at the company and they settled everything and they invited me out and asked me if I would help them design some instruments and take a look at what they were doing and give them some input. And this really goes back to Vincent Bach, who was the founder of the company back in 1925, basically 100 years ago. And Bach was a cornet soloist and trumpet player, played in the Boston Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera, and was also an engineer by his education. And he started making mouthpieces and then made instruments.
Michael Sachs:And there were a number of players, one in particular, george Magere in Boston, the principal trumpet in Boston, who was very heavily involved with Vincent Bach and advising him in making his instruments through the 20s, 30s, 40s, as were others in the New York area. And then when Bach sold his company and they moved Kahn-Selmer moved to Elkhart, they moved away from having people like me, principal trumpet and orchestra involved and the company's instruments were phenomenal, right. But then over time things kind of went a little astray and they were looking for me to help them kind of gather things back and get back on track. And I was very fortunate that they approached me because they knew my love for the instruments and that I was playing them and they also knew I had some knowledge about this cursory knowledge now much more having worked with them and they also knew my. I had some knowledge about this cursory knowledge now much more having worked with them.
Michael Sachs:But it's been fascinating understanding the, you know, from a design aspect, from an engineering aspect, all the little elements that go into an instrument, that even the tiniest little thing could have a huge impact on the result from the instrument. Yeah, and learning all about that I mean some of it quite frankly is voodoo. I mean there's engineering in a book that's theoretical and there's engineering that's actual, that actually works, and a lot of the stuff that actually works technically shouldn't. So it's a little counterintuitive and to get people to do that sometimes is a little tricky. You have to prove to them over and over again that hey, if you do this, this, this and this. It may not theoretically be correct, but it is correct for what we need.
Andy Heise:It's those pesky humans getting in the way again of good math.
Michael Sachs:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I've had a few battles with engineers over the years that I've had to, you know, prove my point in front of them and say, well, turn your back. Listen to this Now listen to this. Do you hear the difference?
Nick Petrella:That's key. That's key Using your ears and not your eyes.
Michael Sachs:Yeah, difficult, and it's a battle I've forged many, many times, and I know there's some people in Elkhart who see me coming and roll their eyes like, oh God, this guy, this guy is coming back again to foil our plans, did you?
Andy Heise:know he doesn't even have a music degree.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, that's what they're at. That's, yeah, that's the word on the street in Elkhart anyhow it's, it's.
Michael Sachs:It's been incredibly educational for me to be part of that and for them to let me into the the inner workings of that and, um, I'm delighted at the evolution of things and where things are going and we're on track to have some stuff come out. I don't know when that will be, but it seemed imminent for about a year now. So as soon as they figure out a couple last elements from their engineering standpoint, how to manufacture it once it gets going, I'm going to be really delighted. Oh great, but it's been a lot of fun for me.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, I bet, and is that just?
Michael Sachs:limited to your model or do they take what you do, advice you give and spread it out to other models? It's specifically for two, for a B flat trumpet and a C trumpet that I'm personally involved in Gotcha. But a lot of the things that we've that we figured out through the experimentation and just things we've realized through trial and error with me and another player, esteban Baton uh Kahn's, the principal of Chicago Symphony, who's now doing a year as principal in Philadelphia, that Esteban and I are both involved to various capacities. Gotcha and some some other people on the periphery as well, that you know they're taking a lot of the experimentation that we've all been doing and kind of using that across all the different lines.
Michael Sachs:So I would say yeah, I would say yeah, a lot of the stuff I've worked on personally has seen it. You know its use in other designs and other instruments, absolutely.
Nick Petrella:Michael, given the wide range of activities you're pursuing you're teaching, you're performing with the orchestra and all the festivals what's your approach to time management?
Michael Sachs:Time management's an interesting question. I try to tell myself sleep is overrated. Um, that usually doesn't work very well.
Nick Petrella:Um family life too.
Michael Sachs:Yeah, yeah, oh. I have an incredible wife and beautiful daughter and you know I love my time spent with them and I I guard that with my life. Um, I, I think being very efficient with things, trying to keep things balanced, approaching it all with a sense of humor, not taking myself too seriously, I think is extremely important. I go into a piece of metal. When it all comes down to it, you really break down what I do, so I can't take it too seriously that I basically do that into a piece of metal.
Nick Petrella:I think we found our marketing quote.
Michael Sachs:Yeah, that's it.
Nick Petrella:No, it won't be.
Michael Sachs:Yeah, but no, I guess I've always known that I've always had kind of an obsessive, compulsive nature to my whole mindset, that when I'm involved in something I go all in.
Nick Petrella:Yeah.
Michael Sachs:And so if I'm designing the instruments, I'm all in on that. So I've become very obsessive about that and I kind of roll in spurts with that while with my playing it's all kind of a constant. And then the various things that I'm involved in I'll focus on that at that moment. So I've always been very good at compartmentalizing and being like OK, I'm going to focus on this for the next three hours and this other stuff doesn't exist. Next three hours and this other stuff doesn't exist. I find that if, if I, if I, if I try to play ping pong too much and try to juggle five things at once, I'm going to do five things very mediocre. But if I really focus on one thing at a time, I tend to define that over time. That's, that's my kind of successful formula.
Andy Heise:Good formula Good, orchestral positions are notoriously competitive and just to provide some context for listeners who may not be familiar with that there and and correct me if my numbers are off in any of this, I kind of made this up, so to speak. There are roughly 20, there's roughly 25 to 30 major orchestras in the United States with only four trumpet spots, usually Okay. So that's a hundred to 120 positions that exist in the United States playing trumpet in a major orchestra. And when, on the rare occasion, one of these spots opens up, uh, a perfect example right here. Michael, you've been there for 30, 37 years, so the spots aren't exactly rotating on a regular basis, right? Um, it can attract hundreds of applicants from all over the world for that one, for that one spot. So, given this intense level of competition, how do orchestral musicians prepare for and cope with this type of pressure?
Michael Sachs:Auditions are really an interesting subject because you find some people that say well, for auditions, you have to do this, this, this and this. While performing, you have to do this, this and this. I tend to see auditions my own auditions that I took, as well as coaching other people. Ultimately, I see auditions and performing as one and the same. The more you can think in context, the more you can feel that you're not alone out on stage, the more you feel prepared, and by prepared I mean know the instrumentation, know the style, know all the, the details of you, know correct, you know note length, articulation, tempo, rhythm, intonation, etc. Etc. Cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know all those details are in place and then understand the piece, understand the purpose and the commitment of the composer at that moment. What is the composer saying? What is the contextual sense of what's happening before, during and after? How can you transport the listener into that moment in that piece? Because I've been on a lot of auditions, every brass audition of the Cleveland Orchestra for the last 37 years. I've heard and I hear a lot of great playing where people come in and they play all the notes. Great, and they play it note perfect, but they say absolutely nothing with what they play, and to me, I mean, there's a couple of major things. If I could boil it down, what I want to hear in an audition is somebody with a compelling musical presence, meaning that they have a singular voice on the instrument that is compelling, that their sound draws me to them. Their sound draws me to them and transports me and catapults me into the piece of music that they're playing at that moment. And so you have to have the technical skills, but you have to have the creative skills to think to yourself what do I want my voice to be on the instrument? And I say this to every one of my students, that my job as a teacher is to help you cultivate your voice, not to be a mimic of my voice or Bud Herseth's voice or Chris Martin or Tom Rolfson or anybody else who's incredibly wonderful players, but everybody's voice is as unique as your own fingerprint on the instrument, and it's up to you to figure out what that is and to play with that kind of responsibility and respect to the music, but also with that kind of conviction, yeah, and playing in a manner that really says something with your sound, and the sound is the first thing that hits the listener. So cultivating that sound and cultivating a sound that's singular to you and that's something that I've tried very much to create my own fingerprint in a particular way, much to create my own fingerprint in a particular way, and a lot of the people I mentioned earlier, the Tom Stevens and Bud Herseths and Phil Smiths and, and you know, morris Murphys and Gabor Tarkovys and other people that I didn't mention, even Doc Severinsen all these people that I've kind of thrown little bits and pieces of them into a big pot and stirred it up to create my own identity. Every musician who is successful has done that. So that's what I say for a student Start with the basics of fundamentals. Your fundamental house has to be in order, because without fundamentals, expressing something has no meaning, but fundamentals on their own, without using any musical expression, has no meaning. So one kind of dovetails into the other. So that's what I would say With auditioning, the best way to combat feeling pressure or feeling any nerves is preparation and A sense of self of who you are and what your voice is, and just expressing that I mean.
Michael Sachs:I always say you have nothing to lose in an audition. Auditions are all about opportunity. It's not like you play poorly in an audition. Somebody says all right penalty. You didn't play well, give me your C trumpet. You walk out of there with one less horn. I mean it doesn't work like that. You walk out with what you walked in with. It's all opportunity. You have nothing to lose, yeah, so so go out there.
Michael Sachs:Reframing is yes, I have a silly cliche. I like to tell my students and that is same horn, same music, same person. Whether you're playing in your basement, on stage at Carnegie Hall, in the basement of a church in Brooklyn for 10 bucks, a show by yourself in a stairwell at school Same music, same horn, same person. So you travel with everything you need. So if you start thinking about it like that, you prepare like that, you prepare your mind like that, and if your mind is in the right place, your playing will follow. I mean so much of music at a certain point, at a certain level. It's what's between your ears and how you approach it. If you approach auditions with trepidations, oh my God, that's so scary. And no, there's all this pressure. Hey, you're going to feel under the gun, you're going to feel like there's a two-ton weight on your chest. If you walk in and say I got nothing to lose, I'm prepared, I'm going to walk out there and see how close I can come, to plan my best.
Michael Sachs:Let it fall where it does and then let it fly and go for it. I don't care if somebody misses a note in an audition. If they miss a note in every piece, yeah, that's a problem, Right. But I actually like it when somebody makes a mistake, because we're all human, we're all going to make mistakes.
Michael Sachs:I've heard I like to say I've heard every great brass player over the last 45 years absolutely destroy and screw something up royally Every one of them, every single one of them. But the difference in the great ones is that the next thing they play they are right back on track like that never happened. Yeah, gotta be, they don't let it. They don't let it snowball and the wheels come off the cart. So I like when people make a mistake, because I want to see their mental toughness, I want to, I want to see how they, they test themselves and are they able to have amnesia that they need to come back full strength on the next thing? Yeah, and that tells me their mental fortitude and whether they're going to be able to really, whether they're going to be able to survive the job. Because that's you know. I like to say even Sandy Koufax got shelled. Every now and then I mean, you can't throw a perfect game every night.
Nick Petrella:I want to try See how close I can come, but we're going to switch gears here and talk about solo playing. You've been an active soloist over the years and I'm sure it's different now that you're established, but when you first got started, how did you go about arranging solo performances?
Michael Sachs:Funny enough, solo playing is something that, very early on, some of my mentors and the people supporting me my teachers, my mentors encouraged me to do that because they said you know, if you're playing in an orchestra, it's very important to go out and play chamber music, very important to go out and play solos.
Michael Sachs:Stretch your playing, stretch your styles of playing, go into arenas that you're not as comfortable with and learn to become comfortable with it.
Michael Sachs:So I kind of threw myself out there and just took whatever solo opportunities I could make for myself, starting with recitals at the schools where I was teaching, and then opportunities with the orchestra I was playing with, and then having opportunities to have the orchestra I play with commission pieces for me which the Cleveland Orchestra has with John Williams and Wynton Marsalis and Michael Hirsch and Matthias Pinscher and an American premiere of the Hands of Requiem.
Michael Sachs:So I've gotten to do a number of different premieres and, again, all of these kinds of things are great because it creates an environment for you to evolve, evolve your technique, evolve your music, evolve your musicality and test you and push you and push that envelope of what you're comfortable with and get you to grow and I feel that's very important because you know, testing yourself like that and challenging yourself like that then creates a better individual that comes back into the orchestra, a deeper musical sense when you come back into the orchestra. So I feel like playing solo works and chamber music is a very important part of what I do and I try for there not to be much time in between those opportunities to be able to stay in touch with that part of things. So I come back into the orchestra fresh and in many ways kind of lifted and carried forward a little bit.
Andy Heise:Yeah, yeah, absolutely focuses on arts, entrepreneurship, and we've been talking about the many facets of your career that reflect an entrepreneurial career, an entrepreneurial approach to putting a career together. But I'm curious to know do you personally identify with the label entrepreneur or do you see your work through a different lens?
Michael Sachs:different lens.
Michael Sachs:Entrepreneur is a word that I'm honored if somebody sees me in that kind of a light. No, I'd like to be seen as somebody who is creative, who is artistically entrepreneurial from the sense that I'm looking to create events, to gather musicians, to gather ideas, to create things in spaces that maybe are missing something where there could be opportunities. I mean a couple things. For instance, the books that I've done. Really, the books that I've done come out of just looking at needs for my students and seeing that there weren't things, there weren't materials there that I felt they needed. Or I think to myself when I was a student, what would I have wanted that I didn't have access to? So that, in a lot of ways, is my motivation for pretty much all of my books.
Michael Sachs:For some events, like the National Brass Ensemble, where I got together principal players from top orchestras of Cleveland, chicago, new York, boston, philadelphia, los Angeles, san Francisco that was just to gather all those forces together. Some of that was very selfish on my part. I wanted to play with these guys, that's right, and I felt like this was going to be a great opportunity for us to. You know, a lot of them were really good friends, but never get the opportunity to play together and I thought it would. This camaraderie and this great kind of convergence of all this high level artistry would have this kind of exponential formula to the energy in the room. And you know, I also felt like there was that was missing, because one of the hallmark recordings for any brass musician, kind of our Mount Rushmore, is a 1968 Gabrielli recording of people from the brass sections of Philadelphia, chicago and Cleveland.
Michael Sachs:So many ways this National Brass Ensemble Gabriele recording we did in 2014, and the gathering was inspired by that and kind of the new generation, and my feeling was, instead of just going back and redoing another Chicago, cleveland, philly thing, I wanted to broaden it because we needed to be more inclusive.
Michael Sachs:We're now many more groups and you know, it was just one of those things where the 1968 group never played a concert. We not only played the concert in Sonoma in 2014, but also a CD release concert in Chicago and it was one of the great experiences I was lucky enough to be part of. But in a sense, that gathering, I guess the inspiration was artistic but also entrepreneurial, from a sense of, you know, wanting to get that word out, wanting people also to see that this generation of brass players not only were colleagues but were dear friends who had the greatest respect for each other, who loved playing with each other, and that radiated from the concert stage and from the recording, and that's something that I wanted to come across. I guess entrepreneurial may not be the right sense of it, but I wanted to reflect. There's a new generation here and there's a new generation here and there's there's a new culture that we are presenting.
Andy Heise:that, I feel like, is very important and very positive. Yeah, and we embrace and respect the tradition from which we, we come right Exactly, yep, yep.
Nick Petrella:Michael, I want to circle back to the music festival. Do you interact with donors and, if so, what's your approach to donor relations?
Michael Sachs:As part of my work with development. Yes, I do interact with donors quite often when I'm up in Steamboat and sometimes when I'm not, I'll make some phone calls or reach out to some specific people if that's warranted and necessary. My whole approach to asking people for money is not to ask them for money.
Nick Petrella:Okay.
Michael Sachs:One thing, if one thing I learned from my father business is all about relationships and those relationships need to be personal. If somebody comes to you BSing and is very clear they want something from you and they have their hand outstretched from the beginning, there's no way any right-minded person is gonna gonna fall for that. Especially the type of people we're dealing with are people who you know are in these circles and many organizations are asking for their assistance and their support. Why do they want to support us? That's my first question, and my reasoning is because there's something important there for you, because there's something, there's a personal stake in it, there's a personal interaction, there's a personal relationship there and that is the most important part to me of donor relations. I never ask anybody for a penny.
Michael Sachs:To me it's cultivating that relationship and bringing them into the world of our festival and bringing them into the world of here. We are here, these musicians, here's what we're doing. It's really exciting. Come and be a part of this, come and join us, be a part of this, and you know we're, you know we're supporting it and you know to have you along would be would be that much greater. And see that they're an additive, that there's something important happening and part of this is also the festival.
Michael Sachs:As a sidebar, I think something like 65% or 70% of the events produced by the festival are free to the community. There's a lot of things that go on year round for education in the schools and education in the community and free concert series and at the local museum and different aspects of that. So there's very much a community aspect to it. So, again, making it personal, it's about the community, it's about enriching the community. It's about also you getting to be up close and personal with these people that sure you can pay $250 and go sit in Carnegie Hall and hear them with. You know 2,500 of your closest friends.
Nick Petrella:Exactly.
Michael Sachs:Or you can be in this intimate environment with 500 of your closest friends up close and spend time with these people to boot. So it there's much more. Connect connective tissue to to what when you're listening to the music, the, you're friends with the artists you're you're. There's that back and forth again between the people on stage in the audience, which I feel like is one of the main things that a lot of organizations miss yeah they feel like they're presenting organization, where they just present something, rather than feel like this is a dialogue.
Michael Sachs:This is a feeling that we radiate from the stage, but that's also radiated back in the appreciation and the relationship.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, that's why I like to ask that question, because we have people, we have listeners who want to start festivals or do something. It could be art, doesn't have to be music, and what you're saying, I think, is perfect.
Andy Heise:Yeah, yeah.
Nick Petrella:So, Michael, before we get to our final three questions, just have one more question for you. Filling auditoriums it's crucial for the success of any performing arts organization. Can you recall any highly effective initiatives that the festival or the Cleveland Orchestra implemented that brought in large numbers?
Michael Sachs:Over time orchestras have tried a number of different things that I've seen. I think one of the most important things first is looking at the factor of who is your audience and what's going to resonate in Steamboat Springs at a summer festival versus in LA at Disney Hall versus New York at Geffen Hall versus Cleveland at Severance Hall versus Dallas at Meyerson Hall. I mean, those are going to be very different things that will resonate with different audiences. So I think the first thing is for any arts organization to look at who is their audience, who do they want their audience to be? Who do they want to reach that they're not reaching yet? What resonates with those different audiences? So I would start with that as kind of a template of just what kind of events you think you might want to do For Steamboat.
Michael Sachs:What I found is the multimedia events doing concerts with film, concerts with dancer, doing different types of music, music with a narrator, with different lighting, you know anything that has kind of a subtext that goes in different directions. I feel has, you know, a little bit more entertainment value potentially. You know a little bit more entertainment value potentially. I also think, just the way you do regular concerts I am a fan of a little bit of talking from the stage, but not too much, right? There's a real fine line of that you want to say a little, you want to personalize it, but you want to get off there before you go too far and I, as you can tell from this podcast, tend to talk too much. So that's. I usually have to stop myself cold. I have a hard stop You're thorough.
Nick Petrella:I think that's what you mean.
Michael Sachs:Thank you, you're being way too kind, nick. No, but you know, in Steamboat I found that a lot of thematic things tend to work really well if there's kind of a theme to it. I found that that also works with orchestras. I've seen some success doing mini festivals, doing maybe over the course of a couple of weeks, like just in November the Cleveland Orchestra did a series of concerts over two weeks where we did all five of the Beethoven Piano Concerti over the course of a number of concerts and because the original soloist who was going to do all five backed out, we had five different soloists which I actually thought, while a nightmare for artistic director, for Elia was a nightmare was fantastic, yeah, for Elia was a nightmare was fantastic, yeah, because it gave the audience a rare opportunity to hear all five of these pieces with different players and different styles juxtaposed with each other on each of these concerts.
Michael Sachs:That was great. I would love to see us do more of those kind of things. Do a festival that has chamber music parts of it, that has community outreach parts of it, that has a lot of tentacles to it, maybe has a food component to it, maybe has a visual component to it, maybe, you know, has some sort of artistic component to it. I mean there are a lot of different ways that orchestras, festivals, musical event presenters can orient themselves. That, I think, can attract different audiences, can attract new audiences but also cater to their. You know, tried and true, you know longtime fans that want to come and they want to hear their Beethoven, their Brahms and their Mozart and their Dvorak symphonies. You know great. You don't want to mess with them. You don't want to forget about them. You don't want to put always a contemporary piece to piss them off and then put the bonbon to soothe them so they don't leave. You know, angry it's, you know. So you've got to be smart about this. And you know arts organizations like the Cleveland Orchestra. It's a big challenge because you want to keep growing the art form, so you have to play new music. It's essential At a festival.
Michael Sachs:I still feel like I want to do that, but I want to do it in a bit of a judicious manner where I haven't commissioned anything yet but I have done some newer pieces. But I've heard the pieces, I know what they sound like. I know that my audience is going to like it, even though going in they're going to be scratching their head and think what is that? And then they're going to leave and be like, ooh, that's really interesting. I got to go listen to more of that, and that's that's kind of what I want. I want there to be some surprises, but good surprises for my audience, that's great. And that's what I would say if I was talking to any arts organization. First, figure out who is your audience and then start creating events around those things and you're not kind of in a box with it. I mean, there's a lot of ways you can package things in interesting ways that can still do all the things you've always done, just maybe in a little bit different package.
Andy Heise:Yeah, totally yeah. Well, Michael, we've reached the point of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions, and the first question is what advice?
Michael Sachs:would you give to others wanting to become an arts entrepreneur? Be a student of your craft, be curious, be a student, be enthusiastic. Don't always take no for an answer, because I found a lot of times when people say no, they're saying no because they don't either quite see it, get it or see that it's possible. And sometimes it helps if you can help them see the possibility of it and make it happen for them to be like oh, that actually is possible and really I like that. I like that challenge personally if I think an idea is a really great idea.
Michael Sachs:But I do feel like and I know these are cliche answers, but still I feel like too often people stifle themselves and I like the type of people to surround myself by who are the type of big, creative people who think the craziest idea possible. First, what is the pie in the sky, utopian unicorn idea you'd like to do? Start with that and let's come back from there. Rather than starting with small and trying to go big, I'd rather reel something back than try to add something. I always like to try to think crazy big ideas. But also you have to be reasonable. You have to be reasonable and understand the economics of what you're doing and what economic constraints you may have if you have any.
Michael Sachs:Maybe if you're lucky you don't have any, but even so you don't want to spend somebody's money needlessly. That's a whole different problem. Yeah, but there's a lot to this, but that's in a nutshell what I would say about that.
Nick Petrella:What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?
Michael Sachs:Listen to your audience, be aware of your audience's reaction to things, see what trends are. Don't get stuck in one thing. That one thing may be very productive and highly desirable but you might run it into the ground or it might kind of time out. So I think a lot of arts organizations get stuck. I mean a lot of places. Right now, you know, doing movies with orchestras is big business, especially like our summer venue out of Blossom We'll do a Lord of the Rings or Star Wars movie or something. You get 18,000 people out there. I mean that's very seductive for any managers of orchestras because that is a very, very large payday. But at the same time you have to think balancing the large payday with how does this artistically affect our group? Large payday with, how does this artistically affect our group? If we're doing movies every single week, which we don't but some orchestras do, how is that affecting you artistically? So you have to balance it and I think there are other ways to get creative, to be able to create those spaces, to bring in different people and reach out to both your core audiences and different audiences.
Michael Sachs:I think I think just not confining yourself, not getting, not getting stuck. Be willing to, to listen and and and shift and move a little. Right, I think I think. But but you know, being nimble is not usually the best attribute of most arts organizations, that's right. But being nimble in this world of technology and how things are disseminated, and I mean stuff is moving at light speed, so you have to keep your eyes and ears open to opportunities that may be groundbreaking and you may try and fail, but being smart about it and being open to it, I think, is important, right.
Andy Heise:Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've been given, or?
Michael Sachs:entrepreneurial advice you've been given. My first thought is a quote from Bill Veck, who is a baseball owner. He owned the Cleveland Indians when they won the 48 series and they owned the St Louis Browns when he sent a little person up to the plate.
Michael Sachs:1953, a guy named Eddie Goodell he was also the guy behind owned the White Sox when they had the exploding scoreboard and down with Disco Night in between two games of a doubleheader and they exploded disco records and caused a riot and he had to forfeit the next game. But in a lot of ways Bill Veck is kind of the father of modern ballparks, of all the music and entertainment and all that. Bill Veck had four rules of life. I'll clean up the last one, number one have fun. Two be curious. Three make lots of money. And then the last one I'll clean up and say don't work with or for difficult people, because it was originally don't work with or for a-holes.
Michael Sachs:It's good. Bill Veck's four rules of life. I'd say that's probably my best piece of advice anybody ever gave me. Was was showing me that.
Andy Heise:Are those in order of priority, an order of importance?
Michael Sachs:I think so, but, but, but you know, you know the the third, one kind of kind of kind of an outgrowth of the other three, I think.
Nick Petrella:Sure, sure, sure, sure. That's great. Well, thanks so much for being with us, michael. You have such a wide breadth of musical knowledge and I know you gave the listeners a lot to think about on a variety of music careers.
Michael Sachs:Thank you very much, Nick, and thank you very much, Andy. It's a pleasure to get to talk with you today.
Andy Heise:Thanks for your time, Michael.
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