ARIZONA FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
As we lose older audience members to mortality, we must replace them with new/younger audiences, and vie for attention with their other interests--other popular and classical art forms, social media, home video and the other now-usual suspects.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Evening Series
This is AFCM's trademark collection of concerts, the best of the best from around the globe, engaged by AFCM for one night only in Tucson. It is our serious and sophisticated series of full-length concerts, designed to appeal to knowledgeable chamber music aficionados, classical music enthusiasts, and anyone interested in chamber music in its purest form.
Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival
Every March, we host a cast of musicians from around the globe for an intensive week of collaboration and performance not seen at any other time during the season. Master classes, lectures, a student matinée, and afternoon and evening concerts with opportunities to meet the musicians make for a week of chamber music joy.
Piano & Friends
Piano & Friends is a series of Sunday matinees featuring the best young chamber artists. Instrumentation includes strings or winds but always one or more pianos and showcase superbly talented young artists who have won major competitions around the globe. In some cases, we feature musicians who appeared previously in a Piano & Friends concert and are returning to our stage after having achieved further acclaim. The repertory relies on the well-loved and revered compositions of the great tradition
of classical music.
Commissions
Each season since 1997, AFCM commissions and has performed by major artists from one to five new works, all funded by members of the audience. In recent years, we have averaged three commissions per season--two for the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, and one for the Evening Series. The AFCM website features streaming audio of every commissioned work, and videos of recent world premieres.
Music in the Schools
AFCM arranges for local professional ensembles to give 15 to 18 performances a year in six to eight schools. The program reaches 1,500 to 2,000 students, and is targeted to schools in low-income areas. Each of the concerts is interactive, with talks on the history of the piece and composer, followed by questions and answers.
Summertime Evenings
Introduced in 2015, this brief series of three small concerts offers something our regular season does not: local professional musicians performing well-loved compositions in a casual venue with luscious wine, food from local restaurants, and a no-intermission one-hour performance. For those new to chamber music, it is an easy place to begin. For those who love chamber music, it means not feeling deprived over the summer.
Where we work
Awards
CMAcclaim Award 2016
Chamber Music America
Affiliations & memberships
Chamber Music America - Member
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Total number of paid seats filled for performances
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of pre-recorded hours of broadcast
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Total number of works commissioned
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Total number of performances
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music sustains interest in and knowledge of classical chamber music from around the world, supports the performance of old and recent works, sponsors the creation of new compositions, and presents professional artists to educate and entertain audiences and students in Southern Arizona. In the coming seasons, in a national environment of dwindling audiences, AFCM must continue to reach out to new audience members, without alienating the large core of current supporters. Thus, AFCM's strategic plan calls for maintaining the current artistic direction in the established series, while making a harder push to succeed with some more experimental initiatives begun during the period of the previous strategic plan and others that are new, then evaluating their success to determine whether they should be continued or replaced by new efforts. This will also require innovations in our marketing strategies.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Besides maintaining our core programs--the Evening Series, the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, and the Now Music series--each season, we will either organize and heavily promote at least one special multi-concert event keyed to core repertory (in 2016, presenting Sharon Robinson and Anita Pontremoli in all of Beethoven's sonatas and variations for cello and piano), thus engaging people who may be unwilling or unable to commit to a season-long series, and presenting an introduction to essential chamber music to audiences with a more casual interest in the art form; or sponsor one or more out-of-series events designed to draw individuals beyond the core chamber music audience (Chloe Trevor giving a Halloween-themed violin recital in an abandoned theater; collaborations with the alt-classical Chamber Lab group).
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
With its wide artistic contacts internationally and on the local scene, and with a substantial cash reserve and endowment, AFCM has the connections and funding to promote and present experimental programs, even if the individual programs result in a loss. To explore more modern marketing techniques, we have engaged the firm OpenForm to study our organization and audiences in their current state, then develop and implement a new across-the-board marketing plan.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Attendance at our main Evening Series concerts has bounced back to its pre-recession levels, although now it is based more on single-ticket sales (we no longer have a two-year waiting list for season tickets). Attendance at the midweek concerts of the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, though, has not yet returned to its earlier levels, and the former Piano & Friends series has always had rather low attendance by our standards, despite enthusiasm for the artists on the part of audience members who do show up. We are hoping that multimedia and interdisciplinary expansion of Piano & Friends into the new series Now Music, and a revamped, modernized, multi-platform marketing strategy will boost our attendance figures in these areas. On the other hand, our commissioning series goes from strength to strength, with audience members coming forward with $10,000 sponsorships for the creation of these new works, and our Music in the Schools program has doubled its reach over the past two seasons.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
ARIZONA FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC
Board of directorsas of 07/09/2021
Joseph Tolliver
University of Arizona
Term: 2020 -
Paul Kaestle
Joseph Tolliver
Helmut Abt
Wes Addison
Philip Alejo
Kaety Byerley
Michael Coretz
Dagmar Cushing
Bryan Daum
Elaine Rousseau
Jay Rosenblatt
Randy Spalding
Paul St. John
George Timson
Leslie Tolbert
Laura Cásarez
Alan Hershowitz
Tim Kantor
Juan Mejia
Ivan Ugorich
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes