Rothschild, founding chairman of the ECO Music Society, ‘It is an enterprise
governed by market forces and reliant on public demand for the excellence of its
musicmaking’ (ECO 1983: 9). The vision and ethos of Quintin Ballardie, current
artistic director, principal violist, and moving spirit of the ECO, remains steadfast to
founding principles as the orchestra celebrated its fortieth year: ‘We believe very
strongly in free enterprise. It is up to us to make it work and make money, if
possible, as well as making great music’ (interview with the author). He cham-
pions that the ECO should remain ‘privately-held’. (The ‘private’ nature of the
ECO creates an obstacle in being eligible to receive public funding. The ‘non-
distribution’ constraint is not maintained: a surplus, if any, may be divided
amongst two uses: ploughed back as retained earnings to support the activities of
the organization; and/or paid as a dividend to the shareholders. Ballardie draws an
annual payment as ‘director’ equivalent to the salary of an assistant arts adminis-
trator; he adds that his main source of income comes as full-time player in the
orchestra.) The orchestra
has a particular orientation, according to Ballardie:
It is run on a completely different basis from any other orchestra in the world.
The four London symphony orchestras – London Symphony Orchestra, London
Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and The Philharmonia
– contract their players and rely heavily on government subsidy. All our
players are freelance; we have no such thing as a written contract, though it is
understood that they will give the ECO work first call. There is no such thing
as public money without strings. We have to produce the best product. I find
that pressure stimulating.
Disney is a factory churning out things for people to buy, but surrounded by myth.
Uncle Walt, in his studied avuncular persona, promoted himself as a big bee gath-
ering pollen in order to spread it, flower to flower. He invented the job title,
‘imagineer’, to describe the multi-skilled workers who combined a creative force
with engineering know-how to design the original Disney theme park in 1955. A
similar perspective is adopted by Eisner who views senior managers as ‘editors of
other people’s work’:
In fact, we consider that our job. We’re editors of architects, we’re editors of
screenwriters, and we’re editors of sports shows. We don’t just come up with
ideas. We listen to other people’s ideas, and we tweak them, change them,
refine them, and hopefully improve them.
(Wetlaufer 2000: 116)
Eisner believes that the success of Disney owes much to institutionalizing an envi-
ronment for directed creativity: ‘Discipline is part of creativity. … Discipline is good
for the creative process, and time limits are good. An infinite amount of time to do a
project does not always make it creatively better’ (Wetlaufer 2000: 119). At the
same time, Eisner emphasizes the role of ‘common sense’ (essentially akin to good
judgement) but makes a concerted effort to differentiate it from ‘audience research’:
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