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.
Heidi Melton's Valhallantines for the New York Phil
Heidi Melton turned Wagnerian wit into Valhallantines for the New York Phil's Instagram account.
February 14, 2018
In collaboration with Verismo, soprano Heidi Melton created a series of #Valhallantine posts for her takeover of the New York Philharmonic's Instagram account on Valentine's Day.
In honor of epic and awkward romances, The Ring Cycle-themed poems ranged from limericks and haiku to "roses are red" verses, utilizing Melton's deep knowledge of the Wagnerian repertoire.
Melton's performance as Sieglinde that evening earned critical notice, with The New York Times praising her as "a radiant soprano... Singing with bloom and richness, Ms. Melton was a tender, vulnerable Sieglinde.” Bachtrack was impressed by her "warm and gleaming voice...acted with insight and wisdom," while the New York Classical Review raved, "Soprano Heidi Melton proved nearly ideal as Sieglinde. She brought a rich voice to the role, showing smooth tenderness through most of the act, but was capable of thrilling energy, as well."
Learn more about Heidi Melton >
2016 Tucson Desert Song Festival Delivers World-Class Talent to Sonoran Desert
“In a modern world in which classical music is facing a tough battle for continued funding, TDSF is giving smaller regional organizations an opportunity to thrive.” The Tucson Desert Song Festival brings the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and Grammy winners to the Old Pueblo.
February 8, 2016
Photo by Mike Sultzbach
““Few music festivals can claim the leadership position or forward thinking of the Tucson Desert Song Festival (TDSF). In a modern world in which classical music is facing a tough battle for continued funding, it is the TDSF that is giving smaller regional organizations an opportunity to thrive.” LATIN POST”
By attracting vocal stars from around the world to the stunning Sonoran Desert each winter, the Tucson Desert Song Festival is earning a reputation as a destination arts festival.
The 2016 Festival featured 23 performances over 18 days, including those by Grammy winner Sasha Cooke and BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and Richard Tucker Award winner Jamie Barton, pictured here.
Barton and soprano Amber Wagner, as well as husband-and-wife team of mezzo Daniela Mack and tenor Alek Shrader, were presented in duo recitals by Arizona Opera, which also produced Carmen. Barton, Wagner, and Shrader were all winners of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, which were captured in the 2009 documentary "The Audition".
Cooke joined tenor Richard Cox for "Mahler and Martial Arts" with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, while guitarist Adam del Monte and baritone Bernardo Bermudez collaborated with Ballet Tucson and the Tucson Guitar Society on "Rhythms of the Americas".
Other guest artists for the fourth annual TDSF included the Grammy-winning a capella group Cantus, The Broken Consort, Marie-Josée Lord, and a quartet of young artists from the Ravinia Festival's Steans Institute.
See what the press are saying:
“Whether you’re an opera fan, a devotee of early music, or you enjoy everything symphonic, the Tucson Desert Song Festival will give you plenty of reasons to stand and applaud.”
Tucson Lifestyle Magazine
“Living in Southern Arizona, we don’t often experience some of the world’s best classical vocal talents live, and in person. This dilemma was addressed in 2010 with the founding of Tucson Desert Song Festival.”
Zocalo Magazine
“The Tucson Desert Song Festival is a bonanza of gorgeous music. Arts groups and the fest folk have teamed up to bring us internationally known talent, as well as rising stars in the art song field."
Arizona Daily Star
Jamie Barton to Debut at New York Philharmonic, Return to Houston Grand Opera
Recent announcements for the 2016/17 season also include a return to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and a Wigmore Hall recital debut.
February 3, 2016
In the 2016/17 season, Jamie Barton will make her Wigmore Hall recital debut in London, and return to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for Mahler's 3rd Symphony.
Barton will also debut with the New York Philharmonic as Fricka in a semi-staged production of Das Rheingold, a role she first sang at Houston Grand Opera.
An alumna of the HGO Studio, Barton will return to Houston in April and May of 2017 for Götterdämmerung, in which she will perform Waltraute and Second Norn alongside Simon O'Neill as Siegfried, Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde, and Andrea Silvestrelli as Hagen.
Photo by Lynn Lane