Title: General Manager
Name of Organisation: The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) Phone: 01223 301509
Email: c.lawrence@aam.co.uk
How long in present post? 5 years
What does your organisation do?
The AAM is one of the world?s leading chamber orchestras, performing music of the baroque, classical and early romantic periods on instruments (originals or modern copies) suitable for the repertoire.We are based in Cambridge, have a residency in London at St John?s, Smith Square, and more often perform abroad than in the UK.
What are your responsibilities?
Securing the long-term future of the organisation through planning artistic and financial strategies and then putting the details in place to achieve those aims; most immediately, planning our 30th anniversary season in 2003-04.
Who did you used to work for and what did you do?
After a degree in Classics and a MBA, I started my career with the then Cambridge Festival before side-stepping out of the arts into corporate strategy for Prudential, subsequently returning to the arts as Business Manager of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. After eight years of large institutions, I moved to The AAM in 1997.
What do you enjoy most about your present post?
The AAM is like an inverted ?tardis?: large on the outside and small on the inside.This means one has the benefit of working for a world-class organisation with a big reputation while keeping to a small team and avoiding internal bureaucracy.Thus you are able to effect change rapidly and see clearly the fruits of your labours.
What do you least enjoy about your present post?
At the risk of sounding like most other arts administrators, I would have to say that funding remains a major problem.The only public funding The AAM receives is from successful applications to the Arts Council of England?s National Touring Programme, which allows us to offer performances to a small number of English promoters at a more affordable price. But with even just a modest amount of core funding, the organisation could be transformed. Other difficult issues include the strength of the pound combined with the weakness of the Euro (not that entering the Euro would help us in relation to the Dollar or the Yen), and the collapse of the economics of the classical recording industry.
What is your career ambition?
My career ambition for the next X years is quite simply to make The AAM the best in its field. Beyond that I can?t think.
Who has influenced your career to date most - and why?
Clive Gillinson, Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). Firstly, he was my mentor on the Association of British Orchestras management training programme ?the Missing Rungs? (a scheme no longer in existence but much missed for want of a small amount of funding); secondly, everything the LSO does on and off the platform sets an example to the rest of the orchestral sector, and it is clear who is driving that ambition and that quest for quality.
If you could have done any job in the world what would you like to have done?
Tuba player in the pit at Bayreuth. Failing that, Clive Woodward?s job (as manager of the England rugby team)
If you had three wishes for the future of the arts, what would they be?
? Simpler public funding schemes which encourage core activity rather than non-core activity.
? A return to the eighteenth-century model of private patronage of art and artists among the wealthy.
? Better public transport.