🎻A Crazy Day in the Life of an Orchestra Manager 🎭

🎼 Part 1: The Daily Grind – Like Anyone Else’s Life

7:30 a.m. – The alarm goes off and I already have a message from this week’s guest conductor: “Have you seen my black shoes? The formal ones. I can’t find them!” I reply with a coffee in hand, while slipping on my own shoes and rushing out, my soul still floating somewhere in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony from the night before. I’m not his stylist, but in this musical jungle, you do everything except tune instruments.

8:30 a.m. – Arriving at the orchestra office. I’m greeted by a clarinetist with a war-ready face: “The conductor wants to change the concert program… again. And we’re past the deadline in the labor agreement.” Perfect. Time to put my emotional self-control training into practice while I apologize (again) and promise it will be the last time. I inform the artistic and production teams accordingly.

10:00 a.m. – Production meeting. One hour of debate over whether to use deep blue lights or “melancholic midnight blue.” In the end, the lighting technician suggests “a blue that doesn’t bother anyone,” and we all nod in relief.

12:30 p.m. – General rehearsal. The percussionist complains because the tech assistant forgot the cymbals. The big ones. The ones that sound like the sky is collapsing. Solution? Send the intern on a life-or-death mission through the orchestra building. Too bad it’s in the building across the street, not the symphonic hall. It’ll take a while. We wish her luck and give her a picture so she knows what to look for. Like a treasure hunt—just without a map or a prize.

1:47 p.m. – In my office. The one with terrible internet. For a cultural manager in trouble, computers are always too slow. A guest artist from Cairo wants his travel and accommodation costs reimbursed. I ask for the invoice. What he gives me is everything *but* an invoice: bookings, payment confirmations, candy wrappers and even a love letter from his wife. “If the paper doesn’t say FACTURA–INVOICE–RECHNUNG–الفاتورة, it’s not an invoice!” – I explain, exasperated. It’s the phrase I say most often per week.

2:00 p.m. – A journalist arrives to interview the concertmaster, but she’s hiding behind a music stand, saying, “Interviews are for pop stars, and without my formal gown, no one’s taking a picture of me.” I smile, improvise a backstage tour (*spoiler: I’m actually looking for help*), and the manager ends up giving the interview. Well, lucky me—I got mentioned too as a “key team member keeping everything running.” They’re not entirely wrong.

2:58 p.m. – Just about to go grab lunch. Laptop already off. A harpist rushes in (no, not a harpy, a harpist plays the harp!) and wants to file a complaint because musicians didn’t get a ticket to this week’s concert. Starving and anxious to be back in time for the evening performance, my stomach answers him with a growl. Translated to proper Spanish: the concert is sold out. ¡Sold out! Sorry, no tickets left.

🎼Part 2: Backstage – A Parallel Universe

If the stage is a masterpiece of order and harmony, the backstage is its antithesis: a chaotic choreography of cables, half-finished coffees, musicians tuning in different tonalities of stress, and production crew running back and forth fueled by intercoms and desperate questions.

7:00 p.m. – As the audience settles into their seats and flips through the program (freshly printed and still smelling of ink, despite the QR codes), a ritual nervousness reigns backstage. The concertmaster practices her solo for the hundredth time, double bassists try not to knock people over with their wardrobe-sized instruments, and the orchestra’s stage manager asks me if I know where the second movement scores are. (*Spoiler: I didn’t touch them, and our stage manager would never ask me, from the artistic department, instead of our archive colleagues.*)

Still, I help search beneath a box of earplugs, used batteries, and scattered instrument cases. Oh look—there’s a box of vegan sandwiches! Who’s that for?

Speaking of catering: someone is always complaining that there’s no food and no water. “No water again!” yells a trombonist… exactly three minutes before the concert. Never fails. Once more, we serve water from a large dispenser as if it were French wine. The musicians, noble souls, toast with enthusiasm and a touch of resignation.

8:00 p.m. – Showtime! Everything seems under control. The conductor is inspired; the orchestra is in tune; the audience is thrilled. Except… the maestro’s black shoes are still missing, and he’s gone on stage wearing phosphorescent yellow sneakers. Squeaky. Brilliant. Totally off protocol. But nobody cares: he’s conducting like an angel with wings.

🎻Part 3: The Concert – Or How to Pretend It Was All Planned

When the lights dim and the first note sounds, everything changes. Magic begins. The audience has no idea that the cellist almost tripped on the platform or that the soprano improvised her entrance because someone forgot to open the stage door. (It was the intern. Again. Poor thing.)

From my seat next to the sound console (*spoiler: it’s more like “the ultimate command zone,” and there’s no chair for me*), I watch how every gesture becomes art, how mistakes are gracefully camouflaged, and how the chaos of the last 12 hours finally transforms into pure beauty.

That’s what I love most about this job: in the end, it’s all worth it.

☕Part 4: Epilogue

10:30 p.m. – Huge success. Standing ovation. Flowers on stage. Hugs, tears. The curtain falls, but nobody leaves yet (*spoiler: whoops, there’s no curtain today, we’re in the symphonic hall, not the theater—but it worked for the dramatic effect*).

Laughter erupts in the dressing rooms, stories like “Did you notice I came in a beat late?”, photos with the artists like proper paparazzi. The two blondes from the artistic department are the worst, never miss a shot, and of course—the eternal mystery of the missing music stand. Does someone take them home as souvenirs? We need answers!

Ah, and the maestro’s black shoes reappear. The formal ones. They were in a small fridge in another dressing room, next to last week’s conductor’s Coke. We don’t ask questions.

We’re just happy to close another chapter with no casualties. Sick leave stories are for another episode (*and Part II of a crazy day in the life of a cultural manager, if you want it*).

I sit quietly in a corner, waiting for everyone to leave first, with the feeling of having survived another episode of this symphonic telenovela. I grab my bag, my two phones, and think: “Tomorrow will be calmer.”

All lies.

But what beautiful chaos, including a soundtrack.

🎶Part 5: Symphonic Hangover

9:00 a.m. – Alarm again. This time set to “Gentle Piano,” because after last night’s intensity, anything louder than a pizzicato gives me palpitations. Wasn’t it supposed to be the weekend? I check my phone, half asleep:

– 14 messages. One of them: the الفاتورة photo invoice from Cairo. Thank goodness!

– 3 missed calls. SOS.

– 1 four-minute voice note from the conductor (with intro and all).

– 1 photo of a forgotten bassoon in the bathroom. How is this even possible?

There is no peace. Only post-concert.

🎼Part 6: Monday, Another Crazy Day

10:00 a.m. – Rehearsal again. Yes, again. Mahler. Oh wait—sorry, my mistake! Where did I leave this week’s schedule? Today it’s Shostakovich, with the conductor who wants to change the program again, against the rules.

To top it off, my phone rings. The principal oboe informs me he has the flu and a 40°C fever. He won’t be coming all week. My heart jumps from 0 to 100 in one second. The principal oboe—not just any tutti violin! I glance around for help from my colleagues. Sweat starts to form on my forehead. This is the worst-case scenario. Absolutely *worst case*.

But as mentioned earlier, the details of sick leaves deserve their own story. My colleagues and I will be in the office figuring out how to solve this: one with her coffee, another with a folder full of Plan B, C, and D; I, with my Harry Potter-style round reading glasses, our phones buzzing in sync with our heartbeats.

Still, all of us are smiling. Always. Okay—almost always.

We’ll sort it out. One way or another.

Working in orchestra management is a high-risk sport… it’s dancing between scores, egos, budgets and logistical miracles. It’s surviving a premiere without losing your smile (or the transfer service contact). But it’s also one of life’s great privileges.

And I want to repeat: what I love most about this job is that in the end, it’s always worth it.

Music always wins.

📝 Disclaimer

All characters and the plot in this story are pure fiction. Any resemblance to reality, living or dead people, is purely coincidental.

❤️Declaration of Love

I adore my orchestra, the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria—its musicians, technicians, administrative, artistic, and production staff. Every day I give thanks for being part of this family.

⚠️Warning

Watch out: I already have ideas for Part II – “Sick Leave Incidents in the Life of an Orchestra Manager”.

Nicole Martín Medina
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
May 2025

(original Spanish, translation Deepl, revision NMM)