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Conclusion: Lessons From AJ
- University of Illinois Press
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conclusion Lessons from AJ J udson was a towering figure in American concert music in the twentieth century. He managed the leading orchestras and artists of his time, built the most successful music management company in American history, and pioneered ideas that still inform the music industry today. James Buswell characterized it best, calling Judson “an elephant.”1 No manager before or since acquired the portfolio or the power that Judson amassed during his sixty-year career. In 1947, music publisher Hans Heinsheimer captured Judson at the height of his power in this colorful description of a fictitious young conductor’s arrival in America. According to Heinsheimer, the sole gatekeeper was Judson: [The conductor] had been to Fifty-seventh Street, the heavily guarded gateway to the American Land of Music. There he had watched that pathetic parade of jobless conductors shuffling for hours and hours up and down the street from Sixth to Seventh Avenue and from Seventh Avenue to Sixth. He had seen them duck into the lobby of the Great Northern Hotel whenever they saw one of their fellow jobless conductors approach, or just turn around and glue their eyes to the ham and eggs in the windows of Horn and Hardart till the air was clear again and they could resume their dreary patrol, hoping against hope that Arthur Judson, the great manager, the master over life and death of every conductor in America, would pass them on his way to lunch, smile at them, recognize them, and maybe talk to them.2 Heinsheimer had his tongue in his cheek, but just barely. At the height of his power, Judson had access to all of the important resources—the major Doering_Text.indd 219 12/10/12 3:06 PM 220 . cOncLusiOn orchestras he managed, a national radio audience through the Philharmonic, a directory of contacts on symphony boards around the country, a network of fellow orchestra managers. The magnitude of Judson’s potential power was not exaggerated. Judson’s successes were intertwined with, and fed by, an expanding audience for classical concert music in early-twentieth-century America. Although that audience would eventually shrink, Judson’s development as a manager was fueled by the sense that America was brimming with classical music listeners. The challenge was finding a way to reach them, and Judson was integral to that search. The bridges he built between the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Stadium Concerts, and the New York Philharmonic—and then later between local and national managers with the AMB, Community Concerts, and Columbia Concerts—were innovative steps in the quest to build a bigger audience for concert music. The concerns about Judson’s power, which later clouded his legacy, were not present in the first half of his career, in part because of how his empire evolved. Even as his collection of managerial interests blurred the lines between local and national management, Judson retained his reputation as a strong advocate for local music-making and local management. Also, his work in artist management (the for-profit side of things) emerged slowly and organically as extensions of the respected nonprofit concert institutions he managed. From the outset, Judson showed that he was an honest, hard-working, and creative manager. He also understood that he was operating in a delicate area of the music business. He knew that the orchestras, which were conceived as charitable organizations and financed by large private donations, were going to watch his actions carefully. The same was true of the artists he represented, who entrusted their futures to him. Judson did not take this responsibility lightly, and for that reason he documented all of his work carefully . The many letters and memoranda he wrote ensured transparency and cultivated the trust of his employers and his clients. They also showed his skill as a communicator. Judson understood that people make music happen and that part of a manager’s challenge is to sort through the personalities and emotions that can become enmeshed in the musical process. Since people are vastly different (and orchestras require a lot of them), Judson needed to have a variety of diplomatic skills to be successful. His correspondence over the years with conductors, board members, and colleagues shows those skills at work. Judson knew that words mattered, and he chose them carefully. But he also had to understand a variety of musical and operational issues. His musical background served him well in this respect. When Judson enDoering_Text .indd 220 12/10/12 3:06...