Audrey is a Production and Operations Manager with with various orchestras in the Boston area, including the Boston Landmarks Orchestra as well as the world renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra. Whether leading fundraising drives, prepping sheet music, or coordinating the transport of pianos, Audrey is always surround by her passion of music. A concert cellist herself, Audrey encourages interested students to start learning how to network as soon as possible. Educate yourself on the classical concert scene and go meet new people!
Transcript
So my name is Audrey Dunn. And I don't really have one particular job title. I work a number of administration jobs in the Boston area in the music industry. Classical music specifically. As to my favorite thing and what takes up maybe half my time is working in production and operations. So that's a lot of sort of managing the logistics for an orchestra. Whether it's small or large. If it's a large orchestra, then there's a department devoted to that. Numerous people working out scheduling of is the whole orchestra rehearsing now or is this just the soloists or the keyboardists? The sort of nitty gritty of who needs to be where when dealing with union rules. Even as simple as when do they take the break during rehearsal. You actually have to keep track of that that minute is, that break is 15 minutes. And so things like that. Sort of managing the time of all the people there and managing how do you get the percussion equipment from here to there? 'Cause we're rehearsing in one space and performing in another. The Boston Symphony has concerts every week. So they have rehearsals Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They'll be in 2 1/2 hour or three hour chunks. And if you're working behind the scenes, you obviously get there a fair amount of time before the rehearsal starts. Usually about an hour. I work in the music library. In that case you want to be there to make sure that nothing's amiss. The music you've set out on the stands is all set. So usually you're there longer than the players. Both before and after. Thursday morning there'd be a dress rehearsal. And then in the evening, a concert. Friday afternoon, another concert. Saturday evening, another concert. All the same program. And then the next week they start fresh. In other orchestras, the staff might be working year round but the orchestra only performs maybe once a month, maybe only four times a season with chamber concerts peppered in between. In those kinds of jobs, the day to day life is mostly sitting in an office, sending emails back and forth. Scanning music, or whatever else that needs to get done before the concert can go on. So the cycle looks a little bit different. And the benefit to that is you have free evening and weekend time in between. So that can be a trade off between working for a small organization and a large one.
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