Top-20 US orch seeks chief exec
mainTrey Devey has stunned Cincinnati by stepping down as president of one of the biggest US orchestras to take over a camp where his kids spent the summer.
Trey, 45, is to be president of Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.
He has been notably successful in Cincy, balancing the orchestra’s budgets for eight successive years, resolving its pension hole and expanding into untapped parts of the community. The CSO plays on $61 million a year, with an endowment of $143 million. Trey is also prez of the Cincinnati May Festival.
In a management field low on fresh talent, Trey Devey has been heading the headhunters’ list for a number of prospective vacancies. That he should choose a summer camp ahead of a big-city orchestra is a rebuff to the sector’s established pecking order. We wish him well at Interlochen.
Report here.
Congrats to Trey Devey. Interlochen Center for the Arts is much more than a summer camp. It is also the parent institution of the Interlochen Arts Academy, one of the outstanding private arts high schools in the USA. Many graduates go on to significant careers in the performing arts, especially music.
In my opinion, administrators stay in these jobs for too long a period with 10 years as a healthy norm. I think Mr. Devey shows good judgment concerning the profession and his own future. I consider his move a step up with the potential to make a significant difference in the cultural life a country sorely lacking in such leadership at all levels.
This is demeaning to Interlochen, a particularly special summer destination for scores of young musicians and aspiring future professionals. So many of today’s top-level professionals have either studied (yes, studied) there, or have performed there in their professional years to teach the younger musicians.
I was at Interlochen as a young student. It was one of the best musical educations and experiences I had had in my young singer life.
I come here daily and read post after post in support of the assertion that the classical music “industry” is rotten to the core and you express shock at someone leaving?
That’s hilarious…
It’s far more than a “camp,” Norman (although the summer camp programs deserve great respect) and if you were at all interested in high-level arts education beyond exposing the occasional teacher as a predator, you’d know it’s one the most significant and long-standing arts organizations in the country.
This presidency is a huge job. I wish Mr. Devey all the best and hope he will come to love the place, the training it provides and the values it instills, as so many thousands do.
Was he so successful at Cincinnati? The musicians took an 11 percent pay cut, it was the first thing Trey Davey did there.
Perhaps strive to find more context before commenting: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/arts/music/a-new-labor-contract-at-the-expanding-cincinnati-orchestra.html?_r=0