Rising Stars in...Orchestra Leadership

Mark C. Hanson
CEO/Executive Director, Houston Symphony

Mark Hanson is something of a prodigy when it comes to orchestra management. A recipient of the American Symphony Orchestra League’s 2003 Helen M. Thompson Award for exceptional leadership at the ripe old age of 29, he arrived at the Houston Symphony as CEO in May of 2010, at a time when the musicians’ contract was up for renewal and the orchestra was carrying a heavy long-term debt. The following October, on the eve of the orchestra’s first European tour in over a decade, a new, five-year financial plan was in place, along with a four-year musicians’ contract that saw some concessions, but left both sides pleased with the outcome.

It was not the first time Hanson was faced with tough decisions. In his six years at the helm of the Milwaukee Symphony, his previous job, he managed to reduce the orchestra’s deficit by making some painful staff cuts as well as reducing the musicians’ pay. But he also doubled annual contributions, increased average attendance from 58 percent in 2004 to 70 percent in 2009, and negotiated an Internet agreement with the musicians that made Milwaukee the first American orchestra on iTunes. He cut similarly impressive swaths through the financial issues of the Knoxville and Rockford symphonies—the two jobs previous to Milwaukee.

And now he’s working his magic in Houston. “The Houston Symphony is at a unique juncture,” says Hanson, whose earliest jobs included an internship with this orchestra. “Over the next four years, we will be saying goodbye to our heralded Music Director Hans Graf, celebrating our 100th anniversary, and welcoming a new music director who will lead the orchestra into its second century.”

In addition to widening the orchestra’s audience through such multimedia programming as The Planets—An HD Odyssey and its sequel, Orbit—An HD Odyssey, Hanson and his staff are also succeeding in broadening the donor base, from a relatively small, older and wealthier crowd to a large if less-well-off younger group. In FY 2011, more than 4,200 individual donors contributed $8.5 million to the annual fund, as opposed to $6. 3 million from 2,962 individual donors in FY 2010.

“Some new donors turned out to be incredibly generous from day one,” says Hanson. “One takeaway was, never assume that a young contributor making his or her first gift doesn’t have the capacity to or the desire to contribute at a real meaningful, sizable level.” A native of Boston, Hanson studied cello at the Eastman School in Rochester before transferring to Harvard College, from which he holds a BA in Social Studies.

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Brian Wise is an editor at WQXR Radio where he covers classical music for WQXR.org, produces a music-industry podcast, and oversees an online video performance series. He also writes about classical music for Listen magazine, The Strad, and BBC Music.