Org Man of Music

For years the Los Angeles Philharmonic has played concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, but has also competed with the Hollywood Bowl Association for guest conductors and soloists. Last summer both organizations made a move highly unusual in the music world, turned for advice to McKinsey & Co., a Manhattan firm of management consultants. McKinsey advised that what the two outfits needed was a joint director, added the even more radical suggestion that they consult an executive recruiting firm.

So far as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl knew, no symphony director had ever been picked in that fashion. Nevertheless, they turned the problem over to Manhattan's Ward Howell Associates, a firm that specializes in finding executives for business and industry. Ward Howell invited suggestions from Leonard Bernstein, Rudolf Bing, Sir Thomas Beecham, et al. With a list of 35 candidates to work from, the firm set up interviews, started vetting applicants on the basis of previous success, experience and age--35 to 50 preferred. The rigid combination of musical and managerial talent proved hard to find: one candidate, a lawyer, was washed out because he was high on executive ability but low on musical experience; an opera-company director knew his music thoroughly but seemed a poor administrator. Several were angling for salaries well above the $25,000 to $30,000 range specified for the job.

Ward Howell weeded the list down to six applicants, three of whom were interviewed by the symphony board. Last week Ward Howell's ideal org man of music was on his way to the West Coast. His name: George Adrian Kuyper, longtime manager of the Chicago Symphony, a sometime English instructor (University of Michigan), associate manager of the Boston Symphony and onetime amateur violinist. Kuyper, it turned out, was 60--ten years above the recommended age.

Meantime, Ward Howell is getting other nibbles from the world of culture: a record company is looking for a comptroller and a major U.S. orchestra for a director.

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