Running a music ensemble means that we have to interact a good deal more with other arts organisations... not all of them music ones, but a good chunk are. And even if they are music organisations, they aren't always the ones that we would ordinarily interact with in our regular capacity as professional musicians in a specialised field of music.

But it has been quite eye-opening to see how they all see themselves, and to see how they interact and carry about their "business" with other organisations. All the groups run the entire gamut of humans... from amateurs and enthusiasts who are passionate about their music... to musician-led groups that are running their own ensembles... to professional ventures such as concert entrepreneurs and agents... and then larger scale and more artistic ventures.

I have found that the amateur, enthusiast, and musician-run groups are sort of similar in feeling. There is the overwhelming feeling that the music, education, social, and all of that stuff takes primary precedence... and that everything is done to make that happen. People pitch in more and band together to make things happen. Breakeven/profit and all of that sort of thing is secondary... important, but it is all the other stuff that is more important. The only thing that really differentiates between these groups is the skill level... but again, not that big a differentiator... more that they have a sort of "fun" or "joy of playing music" feeling at their core, and that is their main similarity. And these groups support each other without question with shoutouts and all of that sort of thing...

Then you have the "professional" elements... I use the word "professional" here to mean... money at the core. These are often not performers... but more like the middle-men that facilitate concerts and extract their fee for doing so. I find them quite rude and demanding... they often hold power in their negotiations with musician groups and smaller venues. They essentially try to craft a no-risk profit for themselves, whilst shunting all the legwork and risk to the other party. They are complete shits... but they often have the upper hand.

However, we have been lucky in this regard. We have no desire to use the large venues... and we only have had to deal with a single agent so far (most of the people in our field aren't pretentious enough to use one...). And that was a hilarious story...

... we had asked someone to play with us after they expressed interest in playing with us, and she directed us to her agent. The agent essentially replied with a concert programming featuring her person (we program our own concerts, as there is a lot of specialist material that most people don't know anything about) with a boring same-old same-old crap... and demanded a much higher fee. We said, nope... and walked away.

Then a few months later, we get a direct email from the player saying that they really wanted to play with our group... and we said that the next opening would be in a couple of years as we had many guests who wanted to play with us (and that was true, not vindictive).... and our offer remained the same. We program, and you take the conditions offered...

... ahhh.. it is hilarious when you know you don't need to see a negotiation through and the other person thinks that they are better than they are! Although

AND finally... the last group... the large organisations and the "artsy" ones... and by artsy, I mean pretentious carrot up the arse orgs... most of which tend to be singer/opera based ones! These tend to only help if they think you are "good" enough... and will cause problems just by being passive arseholes.

We had to share a space with one earlier in the year... after I talked to them to sort things out... saying that we would direct their audience to the right spot and that we would make sure that our children's concert would exit in a different direction to not disturb their event... they purposefully locked our audience out of the toilets, made some of our older patrons walk all the way around the building (instead of through a short corridor that they locked from their side), and refused to let one of our wheelchair bound guests use the disabled access! Fucking opera/singer organisations... I can't stand them... most of them have giant carrots up the arse!

Ah well... what can you do... there will always be dickheads in the world!

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