One crazy week

How do you sum up one of the craziest and busiest weeks of your life? I haven’t a clue but here’s my best shot at the abridged version. After successfully making the drive to Aspen through the notorious Independence Pass (picture soon to be added), I settled down in my Aspen apartment and officially began my life as a League Fellow and Aspen Festival Orchestra Manager (often times two completely different worlds). A good portion of my time these first few crucial days was devoted to meeting Aspen staff and establishing foundations for relationships that will last long past the close of this year’s Festival.

Then, on Thursday, Hilary, the League program director in charge of the Fellowship, arrived from New York and led an intense two day Fellowship training session for the three Fellows (check back soon for a blog about the “Only Three Fellows” question). After this, we began our training specifically as Aspen orchestra managers for the summer festival with our three wonderful and highly talented colleagues (in all there are six orchestra managers).

Now, similar to our two training days, Edgar, Kevin, and I must once again change gears and prepare for a week in Pittsburgh at the League’s National Conference. At Conference, we will participate in a seminar called “Boot Camp for New Executive Directors,” meet and greet key managers in the field (including the executive directors of our host orchestras), experience James Galway performing with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the list continues. Then, after Conference ends on the 12th, we will once again fly back to Aspen, rejoin our colleages, and prepare for the arrival, registration, and auditions of nearly 700 students.

And so it goes, I have hit the ground running. Over the next week, I will do my best to search out computers and blog directly from Conference. Stay tuned for that and many many more posts.