One of the nicest things about being a husband-wife ensemble core... and without a "business"-minded board... is the ability to just do whatever we want without needing to run it past non-musicians that are often focused on things that we don't find important or that are not "core" vision things...

We see it in many arts organisations... the original vision and founders get hijacked by the board, and then it turns into a publicity and money making machine that has a back-end staff and board that vastly outnumbers the actual front of house artists. Plus, the disproportionate amount of funding and revenue goes back into keeping these non-core activities alive and churning out more and more work and revenue for themselves. It is also something that happens with all startups across all industries.

It is a trap that we are keen to avoid... keep the board small and tight, with similar vision... and avoid appointing "big-names" to chase after philanthropy monies. Retain control of the entire organisation and avoid outsourcing ANYTHING!!!! It means more work for us, but it all pays off in the end as we are keeping everything "in-house" and we have no non-core things to have to pay for.

And part of that pays off, when we can just on a whim choose to do gift or underpaid concerts and presentations... just because we like to play together, and because we feel that it is our way of contributing to the wider community. And our 2026 has started off in this manner... 3 outreach/community type concerts with just the two of us before we hit our first major "main chamber" concert series!

We have completed two of these, and although they don't pay the "market" rate that we normally charge... we get so much out of it in a different way. The gratitude and feeling of mutual goodwill... and in one case, a whole heap of paintings and drawings that were done during the concert!

Worth much more than money!

Interestingly enough... we do often see the large organisations try out similar things... but they are often required to do a "box-ticking" thing that is related to grant funding... and then they trumpet their amazing goodness... bleah... it is the sort of thing that is like supermarkets asking you to round up your grocery bill so that they SUPPORT CHARITIES... (not write down their tax bill...)

... and yes, I'm writing about it here, but you won't find us saying that it is all about our altruism and plastering it all over the mainstream socials... this is for us, we feel good about doing it and we feel it is also part of our duty and contribution to the larger community.

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