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AADL Talks To: Alan Brown

In 1984, a very young Alan Brown, (a recent UM grad in Vocal Performance) was stunned to be offered the position of Festival Administrator by Eugene Power, the founder of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival - an opportunity that literally changed the course of his life. We speak to him by phone from San Francisco where he is the principal of WolfBrown, an advisory to foundations, public agencies and charitable organizations.

Alan speaks of his fond memories of Eugene Power, his firm guiding hand and generous support in the early days of the Festival. He remembers a gracious Ella Fitzgerald, a panic moment with Marcel Marceau, and his encounters with other great performers who graced the Festival stage.

Transcript

  • [00:00:00.00] [MUSIC- GEORGE BEDARD, "TOPSY SWING TO BOP"]
  • [00:00:04.84] AMY NESBITT: This is Amy Nesbitt, associate director and general manager of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival.
  • [00:00:10.07] JACKIE SASAKI: And this is Jackie. In this episode, AADL talks to Alan Brown, the administrative director in the early years of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. We speak to him by phone from San Francisco where he is the principal of WolfBrown, an advisory to foundations, public agency, and charitable organizations. Alan speaks of his fond memories of Eugene Power, the founding force of the festival, who offered him an unbelievable opportunity and a guiding hand. He remembers a gracious and generous Ella Fitzgerald, a candid moment with Marcel Marceau, and his encounter with other great performance who graced the festival stage. The Ann Arbor Summer Festival will celebrate his 30th season in 2013. For more information about the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, go through a2sf.org.
  • [00:01:08.01] AMY NESBITT: Hi Alan.
  • [00:01:09.12] ALAN BROWN: Hi there.
  • [00:01:09.86] AMY NESBITT: How are you?
  • [00:01:10.75] ALAN BROWN: All right. I'm thinking about Ann Arbor and wishing I could be there with you.
  • [00:01:14.99] JACKIE SASAKI: Alan, tell us about yourself. And where did you come from, and what brought you to Ann Arbor?
  • [00:01:20.48] ALAN BROWN: Well, I was born in Minneapolis, and my family moved to suburban Detroit in 1969. And I essentially grew up in Birmingham, well before it was a glitzy suburb. Wound up going to the University of Michigan for my undergraduate degree. I studied vocal performance at the School of Music. So my heart is really in Ann Arbor, even though I've lived in Connecticut and now in San Francisco. I dearly love Ann Arbor and hope maybe someday to return.
  • [00:01:58.45] JACKIE SASAKI: Now how did you become associated with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival?
  • [00:02:03.41] ALAN BROWN: Well that's a funny story. After I graduated college, I had a degree in vocal performance which, I joke now, prepared me for a career in food service, which is exactly what I did. I started working at the Michigan Union in the food service department initially for the Art Fair, and then I got hired full time. And I was working at the Union in 1984 when Gail Rector, who was then the director of University Musical Society, approached me about organizing food service for the outdoor component of the first Ann Arbor Summer Festival in 1984 which Gail was programming. The first festival was really mostly UMS-sponsored artists. So I got involved. And in the process of doing that, I met Eugene Power, who was the founder of the festival and chairman of the board at the time. And his executive assistant was a woman named Margaret Massialis. And I got to know them well in the course of organizing the Top of the Park. And the following year, I was no longer at the Michigan Union, but they hired me to manage the Top of the Park for 1985, which was the year that they had hired Bob Alexander to be the executive director of the festival. Bob was Judy Dow's husband at the time and a great administrator. But there were some internal problems, which I won't go into, between Gail Rector, Eugene Power, and Bob Alexander. And the bottom line is that Mr. Alexander left the festival after 1985. The programming had been a little too serious, pretty heavy on classical music, and the ticket sales didn't add up. And the festival nearly folded after its second year. But the Top of the Park had been very successful and very fun. And I'll never forget the night that Eugene Power called me at home and offered me a job as administrator of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. I was 25. And I remember him. I think he offered me $18,000 a year. So I had another offer for $20,000 a year to be the operations director of the Greensboro Symphony. And I said, well, Mr. Power, if you could offer me $20,000, it would make a big difference. And he said, well, I don't suppose it matters much. And he hired me. So that's how I first got started. I had no qualifications whatsoever to actually run an arts festival aside from having run the outdoor component. So Gene Power took a huge gamble on me. And not coincidentally, the day after he hired me, he pledged $20,000 to the Ann Arbor Summer Festival in case he made a mistake. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:05:17.28] ALAN BROWN: And I all of a sudden found myself as the staff director of a mid-sized arts festival and just exploded in terms of realizing what an opportunity I had and how much I had to learn. So many people supported me in that journey, but that's how I first got involved in the festival.
  • [00:05:38.77] JACKIE SASAKI: Now how long were you the executive director?
  • [00:05:41.44] ALAN BROWN: Well, I have to say, I was never the executive director.
  • [00:05:44.39] JACKIE SASAKI: Oh, I'm sorry.
  • [00:05:45.82] ALAN BROWN: No, no, no, because it that title implied a certain level of responsibility which was not appropriate for me at the time. But I was the administrator, I think, for four years, and then finally they gave me the title of festival director, I think, the year before I left. I started in 1985, and I left Ann Arbor on October 8, 1990-- so about five years.
  • [00:06:12.82] AMY NESBITT: What are some things that stand out in your memory as highlights of turning points, key moments during your tenure?
  • [00:06:22.54] ALAN BROWN: Wow, there are so many. What I have with me still-- I think about Mr. Power almost every day, because believing in me at a young age and giving me the opportunity that he gave me completely changed my life. And for that, I will always be incredibly grateful. And I've come to realize that the only way that I can repay him is by doing the same thing for other young people. So I work constantly with young arts administrators, students in different arts administration programs, helping them with research projects, speaking, speaking to classes, and generally just trying to be a supportive colleague to young people. So honestly that is the lasting effect of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival on me which was profound, which was the opportunity that Eugene Power gave me. So in terms of other more mundane aspects, there are so many. The festival turned around in 1986. I remember there was a board meeting where people were wringing their hands over the programming and should we keep it classical, or should we open it up to more popular artists? And there were people on both sides of the fence. And I remember Jay DeLay, who was the chairman of Comerica Bank at the time, he put his fist on the table, and he said, you know, we're not going to solve the problems of the world in the summertime. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:08:10.77] ALAN BROWN: And that was the moment where the festival opened up its programming to a wider range of artists-- still some serious artists, but we were also able to program some more popular musicians and so forth. And that was really a pivot point which allowed me to book a wider range of jazz artists as well as some popular companies. But Marcel Marceau, as you may remember, was closely associated with the festival in the early years. And I presented him 13 times, I think. He was quite a character. My favorite moment was being in the stairwell between backstage and the green room at the Power Center after his performance. I was taking him up to the green room to greet his fans. And we were in a vestibule, and he thought that we were locked in this vestibule. And he wheeled around to me, and he said, avez vous les cles?-- which is, do you have the keys? I have to remember that, yes. I said, I thought you couldn't talk? [LAUGHTER] Anyway, it was one of those funny moments. But there were so many highlights, many of which I ought not to divulge, with artists like Sarah Vaughan, who was quite a character, and having limousines problem. After her performance, she was scheduled to go to Cincinnati, and her limo overheated. It was the hottest day of the summer outside the Bell Tower Hotel, and I had to drive her from Ann Arbor to Cincinnati.
  • [00:09:52.44] AMY NESBITT: Wow. Would that be part of your duties as otherwise assigned?
  • [00:09:56.88] ALAN BROWN: Well, many of the festival artists thought I was the driver. They didn't know I was the festival director. I remember picking up Judy Collins at Metro Airport and bringing her back. And she was looking at her contract in the back, and she said, oh, I wonder who's opening for me tonight? And I turned around, and I said, no one, Ms. Collins. You're the only artist on tonight's program. And she said, oh, that can't be true. I know there's someone else opening for me. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:10:21.20] ALAN BROWN: I said, no, actually there's no one opening. She said, how do you know? I said, I'm the festival director. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:10:28.71] ALAN BROWN: Anyway, but honestly the highlight of everything was having the incredible privilege of presenting Ella Fitzgerald. That was a new event, actually. We started an event called the Summer Festival Winter Warm-Up, March 25, 1989. And I just called up Ella Fitzgerald's booking agent-- and this was very near the end of her time performing-- and just quickly got a date. It was a Trio date, honestly, in Hill Auditorium which, at the time, was 4,167 seats, I think. And it was a miracle to be able to book Ella Fitzgerald. And it was actually not difficult. I'll never forget-- she came up from L.A. three days early on the advice of her doctor to adjust to the time change. And she ensconced herself in the Bell Tower Hotel and carried on with the staff and invited them to sit with her watching soap operas and whatnot and just charmed everyone. She allowed me to bring her to a benefit party before her concert, which almost never happens. And she was so gracious. At the airport, everyone asked for an autograph, and she obliged every request and thanked people for asking. And I said to her, I said, Ms. Fitzgerald, don't you grow weary of all this? And she said, no. She said, my mommy taught me to be nice to people down here because you never know who you're going to run into up there. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:12:12.76] ALAN BROWN: And she was just the most modest, lovely person and certainly set the standard for other artists. And she gave a great, great concert. Hazen Schumacher introduced her from the stage. And she took the stage, and the entire auditorium, there was an outpouring of love and admiration that I'll never forget. And she sang an amazing program. Ron Brooks Trio opened for her. I got the local trio on the stage. So those are some of the highlights. There were so many others. Working with Pilobolus the dance company, was hugely popular. Lar Lubovitch Company came, I think, three seasons in a row and really made a footprint on the community. I started a relationship with Circle Repertory Company, which was, at the time, a prominent New York company. And they came out and mounted their first play of the season in Ann Arbor during our festival. And we've got the premiere of a Craig Lucas play called Reckless. So there were so many, so many highlights. But those are just a few of them.
  • [00:13:19.03] AMY NESBITT: Well maybe on the other side of things, were there some challenges within the management, oversight, running, development, growth of the festival that stand out?
  • [00:13:32.18] ALAN BROWN: Well that's a tough question. It was such a growth period for me and for the festival that it was all challenging. But I have to say the team that I was so blessed to work with, which was Amy Harris was the first development director of the festival, and Susan Pollay was the first marketing director. When you produce a festival, if you know Amy, you have to be really aligned, because when the festival comes and you're all going a million miles an hour in different directions, you have to act as a unit but often without having a lot of interaction. When I think back, that quality of connection with the staff, I've not yet found that in the rest of my professional life. There were challenges, as there are with any small arts organization with a large board, managing the board at the time. I don't know if it still is-- Amy was half appointed by the mayor and half by the regents of the university.
  • [00:14:45.65] AMY NESBITT: There's affiliation with one or the other of those founding partners, but there's been a lot of openness to the interpretation of how those associations meet and match with the trustees and their current work situation or their historic association with different groups. And you had the great fortune of working with the full 34-member board, which is a very large board for an organization the size of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. And for people who aren't as aware of the history, the board was created to essentially mirror the UMS board. The UMS operations in total, as you may be aware, is significantly larger than the summer festival. So it was just as large of a board but a more modest mission and goal. So it had its own challenges.
  • [00:15:44.01] ALAN BROWN: Yeah, it was also a really great design in the sense that I had access to the highest levels of people at the University of Michigan. And for example, when I needed bike racks at the top of the Power Center parking deck, they appeared in two hours. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:16:06.61] ALAN BROWN: And honestly, it just couldn't have happened any other way. To be able to have the cooperation of the plant department and parking and all of that was greatly facilitated by Jack Wittenbach being on the executive committee.
  • [00:16:29.33] AMY NESBITT: And we're still quite blessed by both organizations. Members of the university as well as the city play key roles into this event being able to occur and be produced at the level it is now that other organizations who attempt even smaller scale productions in the area, in town. On campus or off, I think we really, in many ways, are incredibly blessed with great support from those organizations.
  • [00:16:58.97] ALAN BROWN: Right. Right. Raising money was a challenge, particularly when people knew the Gene Power was behind it. And I think the Festival 400 was a great idea. That was a fund raising group that Bob Alexander and Judy Dow started where it was people who pledged to give $400 a year for four years. And that created a wonderful foundation of funding. But we'd get to the end of the year, and I'd pay as many bills as I could. And then we'd have a little shortfall. And I'd take the bills up to Mr. Power's office. And I'd sit with him, and we'd go through the bills. And he'd say, what's that for? And we'd go through the bills. And then after about half an hour, he'd grow weary of that, and he'd push the button on his auto-dialer and call his banker and say, send on the festival $25,000 or $50,000. And that's how we would make our budget. And of course looking back on that now, I know that's not a sustainable business model, and nonprofit that relies too much on one individual. But it's how the festival got started, and thanks to him, it was sustainable during the early years.
  • [00:18:11.36] AMY NESBITT: Yeah, it's taken a long time and a lot of different administrations and a lot of different devoted donors and community businesses and actually receiving some of our first grants as an organization. It's only been in recent years that we've received NEA grants. That shift has happened over time to make for a better balance between contributed and earned revenue that has allowed the festival to not have to lean quite so heavily on angel donors who come in and swoop in in the last minute and bridge the gap. We certainly continue to appreciate those angel donors.
  • [00:18:51.51] ALAN BROWN: Of course. And don't get me wrong. There were many people who were very generous to the festival, with their time and with their funds. I have to say that Judy Dow was incredibly generous and supportive. And Neil and Burnette Staebler were hugely supportive. I remember Harlan Hatcher, Allan Smith, the other university presidents. And there were a lot of people who put a lot of effort into it.
  • [00:19:22.96] JACKIE SASAKI: Tell us what you're involved in these days in the San Francisco area.
  • [00:19:26.60] ALAN BROWN: Well, during my years at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, for a while there, our offices were in the East Engineering School before it was renovated. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:19:40.30] ALAN BROWN: But we were grateful for the space. And the office was conveniently located about two blocks from the business school. So I had initially started an MBA program at night. And I realized that that was going to take eight years. So I applied for admission to the full-time day program and got admitted. And so for two years, which would be '88 and '89, I went to school full time and worked full time running the festival. And I would stack my classes either first thing in the morning or at lunch or in the evening. And I would literally run out the door at lunch time and go to statistics class and then go back to the office. And I allowed myself to socialize on Friday nights and then studied all day Saturday, Sunday and then worked, obviously. It was tough. I was incredibly motivated because I never dreamt that I could be a Michigan MBA, because I was from the music school. And in business school, there were all these people who were going to go work for Ford and GM and McKinley and whatnot. And they all had a very big business perspective. And here I was running a small nonprofit and played the role of contrarian pretty well. Anyway, so I graduated my MBA in '89 and took a new job and left the festival in 1990 after presenting Aretha Franklin in Hill Auditorium, which was quite an experience I ought not to talk too much about. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:21:21.61] ALAN BROWN: But took a job as an entry-level consultant with the firm in Connecticut. And I spent the first few years doing feasibility studies for new arts facilities, new theaters and museums. And I just grew naturally towards market research. And at the time, there was really no one doing market research in the arts sector. It was a natural fit for me. I love statistics. I love working with data. And it really took me 10 years after I got my MBA to figure out that I really have a natural aptitude for working with data and doing market research. So that's how I make my living now. I have my own consulting firm. I'm based in San Fransisco. My firm is called WolfBrown. And I work for philanthropic foundations and arts groups on evaluation projects and a variety of market research studies, including a study we're just about to release on college students' preferences in the arts. In a way, I've full circle.
  • [00:22:32.49] [MUSIC- GEORGE BEDARD, "TOPSY SWING TO BOP"]
  • [00:22:35.48] JACKIE SASAKI: Music for this episode was "Topsy Swing to Bop" by George Bedard, off his album Pickin' Apart the Past with permission of the artist. AAPL Talks to Alan Brown has been a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.
  • [00:22:51.14] [MUSIC- GEORGE BEDARD, "TOPSY SWING TO BOP"]