Partner Story, Capital City Hues: Charting the Course for the Symphony, Part 1

“I’m from the vice state,” Reed said with a smile. “If you want bourbon, we have that. Phillip Morris used to be there. And we have the Kentucky Derby and gambling. Every vice you could possibly want, we have it in the state of Kentucky. We’re also part of the Bible Belt. It’s just an interesting place. I love Kentucky because it is where I am from and all of my family is there. It definitely has many colors.”

Reed grew up in Louisville and became smitten with classical music as a fourth grader on a trip to hear the Louisville Orchestra in a large arena.

“It was the exploration of something new,” Reed said. “I didn’t know what to expect. But I was there and the orchestra was performing. It just totally captivated me as a fourth grader. There were two visiting soloists. And they were young artists, people who were similar in age to myself. And I thought, ‘If these young kids can do it, why can’t I do it?’ I had that moment where I knew as a fourth grader that my career was going to be in the arts.”

When he got back to school, he sought out the music teacher.

“I went to the band director and said, ‘I want to join the band,’” They said, ‘Fine, great. We have a new person who wants to be in the band. What do you want to play?’ I didn’t know the names of the instruments. So I started looking around because he had instruments on display. I saw that black, cylindrical instrument and I said, ‘That’s it. That’s what I want to play.’ He said, ‘That’s called the clarinet.’ That’s how the clarinet started for me.”

It seemed the skids were greased in his exploration of becoming a performing artist.

“Even as a sixth grader, I was in a Louisville PEP Band,” Reed said. “And we got to play for President Ford during my first trip to Washington, D.C. And then I went to one of those Fame youth performing arts schools from 9-12^th grade. When I was at the school, I was next door to the University of Louisville. And they allowed me to play in the University Ensemble as an eleventh grader. And so I am playing in the university groups as an eleventh grader, getting to experience this musical career. And I am doing very well and fortunately the talent was there. It only grew and grew. And so I had to develop my plan on how I was going to make it in my career. And I discovered the scholarships and thought I could get a scholarship and go to college and I will be able to pursue this passion of mine in music. That’s how it developed. I got my bachelor’s degree in 1987 as a performer.”

Reed enrolled in the master’s program at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music where he also earned his undergrad degree. As he was going through the program, reality started sinking in. Classical musicians must oftentimes string 5-6 different musical contracts together in order to make a financial go at it as independent contractors. Those contracts may involve teaching or performing with a number of different groups. And there is nothing guaranteed.

“I have great respect for people who can live life as freelancers and who make many jobs work,” Reed said. “I need to know what my monthly income is going to be. I want to know if I am going to have health insurance. I need to know all of those things. And so I decided that I needed to have a Plan B so that when the performance side is not going to go as I thought, that I would have something where I’m not going to be a statistic. And also I had to prove my parents wrong when they said that there was no career in music. I had to prove to them that there is a career. That’s when I heard about arts administration. As I did my master’s, I heard more about it. I did more research on it. And then I applied for a fellowship from the American Symphony Orchestra League, which is now the League of American Orchestras.”

Reed snagged a scholarship and immediately began his on-the-job training.

“The first thing I was doing was being whisked off to work with the New York Philharmonic,” Reed said. “And then I was on an Asian tour with Zubin Mehta and the musicians of the Philharmonic. I learned on the job. Since that experience in 1989 with my first orchestra to who I am now, it’s been something that I have loved and would not decide to do anything differently.”

For the past 30 plus years, Reed has been the CEO for a number of classical music organizations of all shapes and sizes.

“The biggest ones are like New York and San Francisco,” Reed said. “I’ve worked with the Houston Symphony. I have worked with mid-sized groups like Nashville and Buffalo. I have worked with smaller groups like Jackson and Tulsa. I’ve worked in different parts of the country, so I have learned to be adaptable. My career started out as mainly in operations and artistic administration where I was responsible for planning the events and hiring the artists and things of that sort. But I gradually decided to grow more in the field. And then I became the executive director and CEO of organizations and got to know more and more about how you run an orchestra and fundraising and marketing and all of those fun things.”

And Reed has proved his parents wrong. He has been gainfully employed in arts administration ever since. It is something that he is very proud of, having come from the inner-city of Louisville.

“There are so many people that you see when you get started and then over the years, you see people go by the wayside, not that they haven’t had other things that have been wonderful in their lives,” Reed observed. “But I am proudest of myself that when I could have given up just like others may have, I never did. When others thought for sure that I was going to fail, I proved them wrong. When I have had head hunters, when I have had senior executives of orchestras who have been very strongly, adamantly against me, I’ve outlasted them. So it feels good to me to know that I never allowed the situation to dictate what my future was going to be. I allowed my dreams and the passion and the fire in the belly to propel me to where I am now. And I feel proud as an administrator that as a kid who came from nothing, now that I am here in Madison leading a respected regional orchestra, it feels good that no one would have every in my lifetime imagined that I would be doing something like this, leading a prestigious organization like the Madison Symphony Orchestra.”

For Reed, it isn’t the quantity — the size of the metropolitan area and orchestra — that is important. It is the quality of the experience that counts.

“I have discovered over the years that I like orchestras the size of Madison and mid-sized more than large ones largely because they are so big and there are so many obstacles that it is hard to move a ship when the ship needs to be turned because it is just so big,” Reed observed. “With an organization this size, you can come in and see the fruits of your labor. You can have an effect on it. You can say, ‘We’re going to do something differently.’ And you can see it happening. If I went to the New York Philharmonic and said that I wanted to do the same thing that I do here, it wouldn’t work because it’s such a big institution with so much history that I would have to face first thing, ‘We have never done it that way. We’re not going to do it this way. And blah, blah, blah.’ I just enjoy this sized organization because I can make a difference with this group.”

As the CEO of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Reed has a lot on his plate, being involved to varying degrees, in all phases of the operation.

“My day is all encompassing,” Reed said. “One of the aspects of my job is, of course, providing overall leadership for the organization. And so every part of this organization, I intersect with and I supervise. I don’t supervise the artistic side. The music director supervises that. The music director and I are equals. We are the ones who are going to work on what a season is going to look like. I’m the one who is going to hire the artists. But we are doing it in consultation with each other. Part of my job is making sure that the fundraising is going well. I do some fundraising myself and I oversee the leadership team and making sure that the fundraising is happening. It is the same with marketing. I am also responsible for the budget. I have to make sure that budget is balanced and make sure the organization stays financially strong.”

Reed is very visible and spends a lot of time in the community. And so he has to be prepared to snap into his CEO role at a moment’s notice.

“The music director is the main face of the organization,” Reed said. “But when it comes to the administration, I am the face of the organization. I’m always out in the community trying to find partnerships and good projects to be involved in. Even when you think that you can just go to the grocery store, you can run into your donors. So you have to be prepared to be on at any given time. I have to make sure that if I am woken up in the middle of the night, that I know what I am talking about in a pleasant manner.”

Not only is Reed responsible for the “present and here and now” of MSO, but he must also help guide it to a solid and relevant future.

“I am strongly involved in charting the course of the organization,” Reed said. “We are celebrating our 97^th season now and we will be coming up to 100 in three years. Someone has to chart the course of what the next 100 years is going to look like. As with anything in life, you have to constantly evolve. I have to be a person who can see into the future and go, ‘Okay, we’re doing so well right now, but we can’t continue this always. So we have to start thinking about the other things that we need to do to prepare ourselves for our future.’ I’m the one who takes the lead in that, to make sure that the organization is ready for the next 100 years and make sure that we celebrate the first 100 years.”

Next issue: The many sides to classical music