Reimagining the Arts at Carnegie with Anna Weber
Last year, I had the good fortune of producing a Juneteenth program at the historic Carnegie Hall for Rev. Dr. James Forbes. It was an exceptional experience—not only because we had inspiring honorees, remarkable speakers, and outstanding performances, but also because the team of individuals from Carnegie’s operations departments were thoughtful, supportive and instrumental in making it a seamless event. They demonstrated a high level of intra-departmental collaboration that encompassed our team and set a tone of anticipated success.
The Carnegie Operations team is led by General Manager, Artistic and Operations, Anna Weber. Responsible for overseeing the planning and implementation of 700 annual events across three halls, as well as the organization’s rental operation, Anna leads a team of thirty-eight administrative and one hundred union staff in handling artist contract negotiations, concert production, front of house, and backstage operations. She also oversees the operations of the Resnick Education Wing, launched the Carnegie Hall Live radio broadcast and digital series produced with New York’s WQXR, and oversees Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect program, a two-year post-graduate fellowship that engages the best classical musicians from around the world.
Anna, you’ve had decades of experience in the arts, with the last 20 years at the iconic Carnegie Hall. What has working in the arts meant to you?
I feel very fortunate to have been able to engage with the arts, particularly music, throughout my entire career. I started out working for the New York Youth Symphony, then with the New York Philharmonic before joining an extraordinary team at Carnegie Hall, led by Clive Gillinson. I have been at the Hall for 20 years. To be part of a team that uses the power of music to impact, even transform people’s lives has been very meaningful and humbling. Interacting with great artists of all genres day in and day out, and ultimately hearing them perform in Carnegie Hall remains, for me, the most extraordinary of experiences. Using the power of the institution to deeply affect people’s lives through music, and to continue the hall’s legacy of presenting the world’s greatest artists and musicians to the widest possible audience, is a tremendous privilege.
As a result of COVID-19, Carnegie has cancelled the remainder of its 2019-2020 season. How is your team managing?
This time is extremely challenging for arts organizations throughout the world. At Carnegie Hall, we had to unwind much of what we spent years planning. In addition, we are looking to develop more effective operating models and beginning to re-imagine what Carnegie Hall will look like in the future, post this viral pandemic. As we work from home and plan our return to the hall, people are learning new skills quickly and are adapting to an unprecedented environment with many unknowns. We are all pulling together, identifying issues, seeking creative solutions across departments, having virtual meetings and conversations, and working 24/7.
Premiere episode of Live With Carnegie Hall featuring (lower right) renowned soprano Angel Blue (The Metropolitan Opera’s Porgy & Bess) and acclaimed theater, TV, and film actor Tituss Burgess with host Frank DiLella (upper right).
We have a principle in our Jazz Leadership Project called Antagonistic Cooperation, which frames challenges as growth opportunities. Does this resonate with you?
Yes, that to me is the art of leadership. The arts are facing a great challenge now to remain connected to our audiences: from museums, to concert halls, and theaters, and many other creative venues and enterprises. Creativity on digital platforms has exploded, and organizations are exploring all avenues for maintaining community engagement. Carnegie Hall has increased its digital presence and continues to partner with great artists, as they share their music and personal stories on a different platform. We are using this time to re-imagine how we connect people with the music for themselves and as a collective experience.
In unprecedented situations such as we are currently experiencing, what ways do you think the arts can help in sense-making?
The arts help to build community and offer shared experiences that can bring people together during challenging times. The arts can reduce the feeling of isolation and can be transporting and transforming. They help us make emotional connections and self-reflect. The arts also help create memories and instill hope. Music, in particular, can offer comfort and the deepest solace.
Two decades ago, Daniel Barenboim was quoted in the International Herald Tribune as saying:
Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
What will be the biggest challenge of continuing to connect to audiences?
The biggest challenge will be convening live audiences in large venues. As the pandemic diminishes, people will, hopefully, have enough confidence to return to live events of all kinds. Audiences are connecting now with the arts digitally, where artists speak to their audiences directly in creative and intimate ways. We will certainly need to learn from this digital engagement and explore how we can bring this intimacy and storytelling into the concert halls for all communities to experience. We need to think about how we continue to engage with this digital audience as we return to the live concert experience.
Live With Carnegie Hall features free live streams of some of the world’s finest artists as they share behind-the-scenes stories, excerpts from past performances, and live musical moments.
Social distancing has been an incredibly difficult for us as a society and devastating for cultural venues. How will it change Carnegie’s operations?
We are now exploring how Carnegie Hall’s future operations and programming could change. Ensuring the health and safety of all our constituents – staff, audiences, and artists, is key to a successful return. We are planning to address operational challenges once we can return to the concert hall. Carnegie Hall is in the process of developing guidelines for reopening, which include consulting with other performing arts institutions, as well as convening an internal task force consisting of cross-departmental staff. This internal group will ask questions, identify issues, and propose solutions to the many challenges we are confronting. Included in our thinking are audience seating, backstage operations, usher protocol, ticketing, and a myriad of other protocols.
What book you would give to your mentee?
Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Goodwin presents four Presidents: Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson, each of whom faced significant challenges throughout their lives and careers. The book explores the art of leadership through the lens of these four Presidents. Many of the challenges they faced relate directly to our current experience. Key questions Goodwin asks include: “Are leaders born or made?” “Do the times make the leader, or does the leader shape the times?”
What I found most relevant and hopeful is her statement that “These stories of leadership in times of fracture and fear will prove instructive and reassuring.”
What advice would you give someone assuming a leadership position now?
I would emphasize collaboration, grit, resilience, and flexibility. Seek to establish peer groups, ask questions, involve as many people in information gathering as possible, from across the organization and the field. Listen to what other sectors are doing on managing common challenges. Seek different perspectives and encourage input from all areas of the organization. Look for creative thinkers, the best and brightest, to work by your side.
To paraphrase Tom Sobol, a former New York State Education Commissioner:
Provide top-down support for bottom-up ideas.
When you look around, what inspires you?
Simple acts of kindness to others, people who combine strength with humility, people who speak with an authentic voice, people who see and value many perspectives, strong family connections, and my mother and father. I also am inspired by people with imagination, who can see life from multiple perspectives, which is really a metaphor for change, hope, possibilities, recreating and re-imagining the future—so relevant for us today.
Exploring the relationship between reality and imagination, the modern American poet Wallace Stevens wrote in
“The Man with the Blue Guitar”:
They said, “You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.”
The man replied, “things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”
We all need to learn to play the blue guitar.
ANNOUNCEMENT: This weekend, Greg and I will be presenting on our Jazz Leadership Project (Saturday) and the Ellison-Murray Continuum (Sunday) at the free online Rebel Wisdom Festival. We invite you to register, check out the speakers and schedule for Saturday and Sunday, May 30 and 31, and join us!
