Arts Activities Support

The biggest outcomes for The Musical Offering over the last season relate to the seriousness with which the company has to approach its operations. First, we've seen audiences respond to being engaged by intellectual content via video - wicked popular online, and right. Second, we are forced to develop a plan to sustain our annual funding needs through sustained donor development. Over this past season, The Musical Offering focused on the works of migrant composers who traveled to Paris, a season that began in the wake of the November 2015 attacks and ended up concluding in an atmosphere of increased social and political tension. This was an opportunity for the ensemble to do two things: first, we raised the level of awareness our audience had about the density and frequency of migrant composers - canonical names like Prokofiev and Copland aren't often recognized that way. Since conversation is wound into The Musical Offering's concerts through intermission interviews and intentional post-concert discussions, we found audiences resonating with this theme regardless of their political views, a recognition of music as an international, cross-cultural phenomenon that is enriched by the intersection of nationalities. The second opportunity The Musical Offering has focused on during this time is the experience of listening to live chamber music itself and the positive physiological effects that come from attending concerts. The time of peaceful, restful contemplation of complex, diverse, and richly beautiful music is an undeniable refuge for our audience and our musicians in this time of social and political crisis. In terms of tangible evidence of these artistic goals, we've had strong metrics from our concerts to support these claims. We always survey our audience at least twice a year (and at least once post-concert), and again this year we found audiences unanimously agree that the quality of music is world-class, "as good as one could expect anywhere in Europe or America." We also found again this year that first-time attendees are most likely to express that their experience was so positive that it both exceeded their expectations and encouraged them to attend again (and bring friends). Our core ensemble musicians also attest that the artistic direction of the group is strong and the musical quality high. One strong piece of evidence for this is their willingness to be recorded and observed throughout the rehearsal process, primarily through videos that our Executive Director created in advance of performances for promotion and educational purposes. Rehearsals are not necessarily pretty, glamorous, and commonly in other ensembles it can be a time of tension and conflict - but not for The Musical Offering's ensemble, the magic 'secret sauce' that keeps The Musical Offering at the top of its game. The Musical Offering had both successes and missed opportunities in its 2016-2017 season in terms of audience engagement. At the beginning of the season, The Musical Offering was poised to repeat every concert in at least once additional venue throughout the year, building community relationships and visibility that we hope will continue to increase our subscriber and patron base in the long term. For instance, in October 2017 The Musical Offering repeated selections from its season opener at the Bakken Museum, returning to that venue after over 20 years. The venue had a long-standing relationship to The Musical Offering prior to the mid 90's, so it was an opportunity for us to rebuild those bridges and increase our presence on the Minneapolis side of the river. Our audience skewed much younger for that concert - exactly what we had outlined and intended, even letting us engage young professionals groups and other pockets of the next generation that has been sorely desired in our seats for years. Ultimately, this season saw an increase in audience size, culminating with the season finale concert of Appalachian Spring, which was our largest audience size in years, including a tourist group from France. However, The Musical Offering fell short of its goals in that we were not able to repeat our two 2017 concerts in additional venues. This is directly tied to an unforeseen outcome of expanding the number of concerts in our season: personal personnel conflicts among decades-old stakeholders in the organization. Short of revealing identities, a retired member of the ensemble was taken aback by not being the first choice to substitute in for a free hour-long public concert at Centennial Lakes park in Edina, but because of his stake and long-standing connections in the organization, we ended up losing about 50% of our contributed revenue for the season when he, his spouse, and their close network of supporters pulled their regular sponsorship-level gifts. This created many levels of challenges for The Musical Offering over the course of its last season, but it is leading to a future of more sustainable operations. We had to have serious conversations about interpersonal expectations while completely readjusting how we raise money from our donor base. Fortunately, the board of directors has taken this task very seriously, and we are currently working with outstanding fundraising and nonprofit management consultants pro bono to create a more robust development portfolio for the upcoming seasons. We are also planning much more aggressive marketing tactics for our upcoming season that will for the first time in years let us reach every one of our core supporters individually through phone calls and meetings.