Orchestra Names General Manager
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra has appointed Daniel Beckley vice president and general manager. He most recently served as executive director of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina.
July 12, 2013
News Release
Indianapolis, Ind. — The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra announced today that Daniel Beckley has been appointed Vice President and General Manager and assumes his role on Aug. 12, 2013. As the former Executive Director of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina, Beckley brings a combination of senior-level orchestra leadership, strategic planning and financial management experience to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
At the Charleston Symphony (2010-2013), Beckley’s responsibilities included all of the artistic, educational and business activities of the orchestra. Under his leadership, the organization achieved significant growth in its subscription and donor base, recorded budget surpluses in consecutive years and launched a successful Chamber Orchestra series. Prior to his executive role, Beckley served as a board member of the orchestra and helped successfully negotiate a new three-year collective bargaining agreement with its musicians. In the private sector, he transformed BlueKey Web Solutions, a small website design firm in 2005, into a full-service digital marketing agency with a 400 percent growth in revenue by 2010.
At the ISO, Beckley will have overall responsibility for the Orchestra and the Hilbert Circle Theatre, including concert planning and logistics, production, operations, touring and run-outs, contracts and budgets. The VP of Operations and General Manager serves as a member of the senior management team.
“The Vice President and General Manager of the Orchestra plays a critical part in our organization,” said Gary Ginstling, CEO of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. “This role will be instrumental in helping to shape and execute the ISO's future plans, and I am confident that we’ve found the right person in Danny. His career in orchestra management, experience in the for-profit world and background as a professional musician make him ideally suited to lead the ISO forward.”
A native of Gloucester County, Virginia, Beckley earned a Master of Music at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Music at James Madison University. He completed the League of American Orchestra’s Essentials of Orchestra Management program in 2012. A bass trombonist, Beckley has performed in many regional ensembles in the U.S. including the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Savannah Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra Augusta, Hilton Head Symphony and Long Bay Symphony and has taught and mentored private students. Beckley considers his arrival in Indiana as a homecoming, as many of his extended family hails from Greencastle, Indiana.
“I am very excited to join such a remarkable organization,” said Beckley. “Working with a major American symphony orchestra has long been a dream of mine, and coming back to my family's Indiana roots makes it all the better. The ISO is in a strong position with energetic leadership, and I am tremendously optimistic about what we all – musicians, staff and board – can achieve together.”
The ISO’s Vice President and General Manager position was previously held by Tom Ramsey, who retired on Feb. 17, 2013, after a celebrated 29-year career with the Orchestra.
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About the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1930, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is the largest professional performing arts organization in Indiana and has been recognized with the Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award for recording of a new composition and by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for excellence in programming. The ISO serves a broad spectrum of audiences via classical, pops, family and holiday performances as well as educational and community-based outreach initiatives.
Krzysztof Urba?ski became the seventh Music Director in the ISO’s history when, in 2011, he joined the artistic leadership team of Jack Everly, Principal Pops Conductor, and Raymond Leppard, Conductor Laureate. Concertmaster Zach De Pue, one of the youngest concertmasters in the U.S., joined the ISO in 2007. In 2009, the ISO named De Pue’s string trio Time for Three its first ever ensemble-in-residence. The group has successfully re-created and programmed the ISO’s Stella Artois Happy Hour at the Symphony series and performed in a variety of central Indiana schools and communities. In 2013, the ISO became the first orchestra to partner with an artist-services organization/record label – New Amsterdam – in order to periodically showcase the sophisticated new musical vocabulary of these classically-trained composers and instrumentalists.
With a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc., the ISO is updating its historic, downtown home at the Hilbert Circle Theatre with new seating in the fall of 2013. The Orchestra plans a more robust schedule of concerts in communities throughout Indiana, and the ISO can be heard around the world through its extensive music library at InstantEncore.com.
Source: Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra