Clues for Artistic and Financial Sustainability in Performing Organizations

What: Clues for Artistic and Financial Sustainability in Performing Organizations / Doctoral Dissertation Defense

When: March 31st, 2023, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm (EST)

Where: Jacobs School of Music - Indiana University Simon Music Center Bullying / Room M356 Bloomington, Indiana, USA. (Google Maps Location)

Free! But limited seating is available. Please Register Here!

***Not able to participate in person? Request a copy of the event video here!***

Para Versión en Español: Click Aquí!

Clues for Artistic and Financial Sustainability in Performing Organizations

(Opera, Orchestra, Music, Art, and related activities):

Can the Opera and Orchestra enterprises be artistically and financially sustainable during current society’s realities and challenges? How to make audiences be more connected to the organization and encourage them to support it? How could all of that be done while having strong artistic and music development? Can Artistic Organizations aim for multimillion Grants and comprehensive business models?

On March 31st, 2023, MaestroDiego Barbosa-Vásquez will address these questions in his Doctoral Dissertation Defense. Focusing on Music, Artistic, and Pedagogic models, participants will be able to examine the concepts, mindsets, and approaches behind programs that have been achieving remarkable accomplishments in those areas. As the CASC Opera Summer Camp in Los Angeles during the last five years with 450% community involvement increments per year, motivating kids to study Opera in their free time and allowing a broad spectrum of stakeholders to support and collaborate with an Opera enterprise. In addition, the Model explains the universality of the concepts and how they could be applied to all performing organizations (Orchestras, Operas Companies, Universities, Performing Centers, Conservatories, Community Programs, etc.) under their unique needs and characteristics as the creation of the Ostrom Opera Camp in Bloomington, IN; that is currently in the launching process. Furthermore, participants will see how these concepts could be the base of multimillionaire grants and comprehensive business models that create a more diverse and healthy revenue model for the performing organizations.

The Doctoral Dissertation “Models for the Creation and Leadership of Sustainable Opera Camps” by Maestro Diego Barbosa-Vásquez has been providing groundbreaking tools for programs, organizations, and products even before its official publication. By identifying the cores of sustainable and effective ways in which Opera and Arts could be sustainable under current societal challenges, the dissertation clarifies ways in which all people (communities, students, and professionals) from different disciplines can experience, produce, and perform Opera all together.

In this Doctoral Dissertation defense, the first hour will be dedicated to a lecture by Maestro Barbosa-Vásquez. In it, the Colombian maestro will summarize his research, findings, the cores of the Music, Artistic, and Pedagogic models, and possible applications to performing organizations. In the second hour, distinguished professors of Opera and Orchestra Conducting Department of Indiana University (Arthur Fagen, Walter Huff, Peter Volpe, and Jane Dutton) acting as Doctoral Research Committee; will complement the activity with questions and further perspectives about the topic.

During his lecture, Maestro Barbosa-Vasquez will examine his research methods. Based on a framework of 13 criterias, the Doctoral Dissertation analyzed 11 different programs around the globe to understand the reasons for their success. The classification of their characteristics, in addition to interviews with multiple international Opera experts, is then contrasted with avant-garde arts administration scholarship, and social, economic, and sustainability frameworks. That generates viable and flexible Artistic, Music, and Pedagogic models that could be used by different organizations according to their necessities and different contexts (outreach programs, community programs, summer programs, apprentice programs, educational programs, degree programs, and/or the full organization model and its mainstage seasons).

The history of this Doctoral Dissertation started in 2018. Then, Maestro Barbosa-Vásquez co-founded, as Music and Artistic Director, the Collaborative Arts Summer Camp in Los Angeles, California. Since the first time, the program has created amazing community development interactions at over 450% increments per year. However, in the beginning, the reasons why this was possible were not clear. That is why the Colombian maestro started a multiyear international practical research journey with two main goals. First, understand why this Opera Camp experience was successful, and second how to develop a model that can secure these amazing developments.

This practical research found its perfect house in the prestigious Opera and Orchestra Conducting Department of Jacobs School of Music (Indiana University). There, as a Doctoral Student, Assistant Conductor of the prestigiousIU Opera and Ballet Theater, and Scholarship holder of the Graduate Tuition Award and Artistic Excellence Award, the Colombian maestro was able to understand the full Opera field. Not only by doing and conducting Opera and Orchestra, almost every day, but also by being guided by some of the most representative international Opera experts to step by step understand every single aspect behind the beautiful and complex Opera art.

After all the Music, Artistic, and Pedagogic dimensions were totally understood, and the present dissertation was in its final editing steps (from the artistic perspective), Maestro Barbosa-Vasquez was selected as Research Awardee by the distinguished Ostrom Workshop. Now with the guidance of remarkable multidisciplinary minds (that collaborated side by side with the 2009 Economic Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom and her husband Vincent Ostrom), this Opera international practical research was expanded to include the Social, Economic, and Ecological dimension. A process that ended with creating the Community, Administrative, and Business Models not present in this specific Doctoral Dissertation but part of the fundamental core of programs, services, and organizations developed by the present ideas.

Even before being published, this Doctoral Dissertation has been influencing new ways of thinking about the Opera Enterprise. One example is the creation of The Ostrom Opera Camp Laboratory. An organization that wants to understand the full dimensions of Opera sustainability and all its clues from an international perspective, with Maestro Barbosa-Vasquez’s Doctoral Dissertation paving the full rationality and framework paths for that enterprise. An academic and practical global enterprise supported by multiple grants as Ostrom Workshop Research Awardee (2021-2023), IU Sustainability Research Grant (2022-2023), Global and OVPIA Summer Pre-Dissertation Grant (Summer 2021), or GPSG Research Travel Awards (Summer 2021) to name a few.

Also, the Doctoral Dissertation is the basis for the $1M Grant from the National Endowment for Humanities that the Ostrom Opera Camp Laboratory requested with Maestro Barbosa-Vasquez as its General (Music, Artistic, CEO) Director. That is the result of how this dissertation creates new ways regarding how the Opera and Artistic Enterprises could interact to the full society. An integral multidisciplinary process of thinking of the full enterprise that creates a more diverse and healthy revenue model for the performing organizations.

Following similar lines, the Ostrom Opera Camp Laboratory (an alliance of SustainableOperaSolutions™ and Ostrom Workshop) was created with a multidisciplinary effort involving multiple practitioners and experts from different schools, such as the worldwide known Jacobs School of Music, ONeill School of Public Administration, and its Arts Administration program, or CLACS. Local community and government entities such as Lotus education and arts foundation, FAR Center for Contemporary Arts, or Bloomington City Economic and Sustainable Development Department. And different Opera experts such as Arthur Fagen, Peter Volpe, Marzio Conti, Walter Huff, and multidisciplinary experts such as Daniel Cole, Scott Shackelford, or Anjanette Raymond.

Some of Ostrom Opera Camp Laboratory are projects are: The Opera Sustainability Podcast, a place where people can know more in-depth about all the opera actors/stakeholders. Or an impressive set of academic papers (produced and on development) that go deeper into the Opera field in its artistic, social, economic, and environmental dimensions (More info here).

In addition, the institution is leading the creation of the Ostrom Opera Camp (currently in the pre-launching phase) to serve the wide Southern Indiana population. This is a two-week intensive experience where all of the Bloomington Community can participate, produce, and perform Opera alongside students and Professionals from different disciplines, such as singing, orchestra playing, art making, arts administration, logistics, etc. The Ostrom Opera Camp is an interdisciplinary effort with different public, private, and nonprofit entities and people involved. A huge full-city collaboration with arts and humanities in the center serving the people.

Furthermore, the Doctoral Dissertation influence is also seen in awarded products, services, and organizations that have been serving society during the last years under SustainableOperaSolutions™ umbrella.

One of them is the CommunityOperaScore™: “The Empire of Light - Community Opera in One Act” (Winner of the Jacobs School of Music and Kelly School of Business Innovation Competition), a CommunityOperaScore™ Originally in English and Spanish that allows communities (kids, youth, adults), students(undergrads, master’s, associated degrees), and professionals (doctor degrees and professionals) to collaborate, produce, and perform Opera all together.

This Opera, led by Maestro Barbosa-Vásquez as the creator of the concept and leader of the creative team, has an original libretto by Alonso Cueto and Esteban Cueto that describes the creation of the Inca Empire (currently Peru) through the search for sustainability for all the society. With music by Daniel Cueto that reflects Andean sound landscapes and a pedagogical artistic proposal by Gloria Manzanarez and Liliana Rocha where the cultural aspects of the Inca civilization are a fundamental part of the operatic experience, all the participants experience in depth the humanistic and cultural elements that the opera experience develops. (See an interview with the creators of the Opera here!).

A second CommunityOperaScore™ is currently in process for 2025 worldwide premiere.

Another product is the Opera Camp. A totally crafted, sustainable two-week intensive experience in which participants (communities, students, and professionals) collaborate, produce, and perform Opera altogether. With a licensed set of pre, on, and post-camp activities, marketing and community-building strategies, and proven successful business models (adapted to each condition); different organizations can offer sustainable, welcoming, and encouraging opera and arts experiences for their communities. Examples of successful applications of these are the 2022 Collaborative Arts Summer Camp in Los Angeles, California; and the Ostrom Opera Camp in Bloomington, IN; which is currently being launched.

Remember that the Doctoral Dissertation Defense has limited seating available. Please Register Here!

About the Author of the Doctoral Dissertation Maestro Diego Barbosa-Vásquez:

Maestro Diego Barbosa-Vásquez is the Music Director of The Americas Chamber Orchestra (Bloomington, IN, USA), Music & Artistic Director of Opera Summer Camp CASC (Los Angeles, CA, USA), General (Music, Artistic, CEO) Director of Ostrom Opera Camp/Laboratory (Bloomington, IN, USA), and Doctoral Candidate in Opera, Orchestra, and Ballet Conducting from the prestigious Indiana University. Colombian-born, worldwide-trained, and based in the USA; Diego is referenced by International Press as a "Musical Genius” El Mundo-2016, "Talent Pride of Colombia" Colfuturo-2013, “a role model for the children and young people of our country” El Tiempo-2016, and “synonymous of energy, knowledge, and confidence of high artistic quality” Nuestras Bandas de Música-2016.

Full Bio at: www.barbosavasquez.com/bio

For more information, please contact:

Diego Barbosa-Vasquez

barbosa.vasquez@gmail.com / +1 6266204391

What: Clues for Artistic and Financial Sustainability in Performing Organizations / Doctoral Dissertation Defense

When: March 31st, 2023, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm (EST)

Where: Jacobs School of Music - Indiana University Simon Music Center Bullying / Room M356 Bloomington, Indiana, USA. (Google Maps Location)

Free! But limited seating is available. Please Register Here!

***Not able to participate in person? Register to my news letter here and request a copy of the event video***