Mark MacNamara talks to William Stensrud about the need for classical music to accept new technologies and what it could learn from sport.
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How Your Smartphone Can Bring 'Creative Disruption' Into the Concert Hall (San Francisco Classical Voice)
“I have always liked the sports model for performing arts,” William Stensrud wrote to us the other day. “After all, sports is a performing art — just a more successful one.”
Stensrud — aka “Bill, Ph. D” (MIT BA, 1971) — is a classical music fanatic, a sports devotee, and a long time oracle in venture capital circles. He’s a past CEO, president, and partner of this company and that, companies later sold to among others, Cisco and 3Com.Forbes once called him one of the country’s 20 top “Movers and Shakers” in the venture capital industry.
Actually, Dr. Bill may be more shaker than mover, and never less so than when he served on the board of the San Diego Opera for about 10 years, and as president for four years. In 2009, he resigned, in protest. In a recent interview he explained: “I could not get Ian Campbell (the general director) and the rest of the board to recognize they were driving the bus off a cliff. Campbell was there saying, ‘I’m going to do classical grand opera whether the audience wants it or not.’ So, boom, I just left. I said, ‘screw it, I’ve got better things to do with my life... Keep reading on San Francisco Classical Voice