Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-7-2002
Abstract
“Leaders are like conductors.” Peruse a half dozen management journals, and it is likely that the analogy “leaders are like conductors” will show up at least once, frequently citing the same Peter Drucker quote. Correspondingly, music journals are as likely to proclaim “conductors are like great leaders” (Armstrong, 1996). As intuitively true as this may seem, little research has been done to study the leadership characteristics of conductors. Instead, the study of conductors has focused primarily on their artistic abilities. This study was aimed at filling that gap. Most conductors perform globally, and thus the analogy of conductor to leader is particularly apropos in an era of emphasis on global leadership in organizations. One interesting aspect of the job of a conductor is that conductors perform in both their home symphony (if they have one) and as guest conductors anywhere in the world. They spend a relatively short period of time (usually less than two weeks) rehearsing with an orchestra before a performance series. Yet published reviews of guest conductors can describe performances as “inspiring” or “nothing short of extraordinary. My fundamental research question was “How do conductors inspire performance from musicians?” I was particularly interested in how the vision for the performance was developed and communicated, as I saw this as analogous to an organizational leader communicating his or her vision. As the study evolved, I became more interested in how conductors and musicians collaborate to create a vision for their music. Little research has been conducted in how groups express voice with leaders (Conger, 2001). This study looks at the interaction between musicians and conductors in creating a vision, in order to offer some parallel lessons to leaders in other organizations. Specifically, the musicians in this study have a highly developed group voice, as will be shown, and their expression of that voice with three different conductors will be shown to be a significant, if not primary factor in developing the vision for the musical performance. The conductor Leopold Stokowski once said to an audience to encourage an appropriate atmosphere: “A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint pictures on silence.” The challenge to the conductors and the musicians is to create an extraordinary performance painted upon that silence. This study looks at the interaction between the conductors and the musicians as they worked together to overcome the silence and describe a world in “beautiful abstraction,” as described by the poet William Mathews. The challenge to an ethnographer is to capture how the “leavened heart travel(s) by information” in a musical and artistic setting, while noticing how human behaviors contribute to those travels. It feels somehow appropriate to insert some poetry into this ethnographic record as a way to honor some of that artistic context in which the culture reflected here resides, since the music itself is not heard in this recording.
Keywords
ethnomusicology
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Willyerd, Karie, "Painting the Canvas of Silence: Vision Enriched Through Voice" (2002). Student Scholarship. 328.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/328