Conductor & Operator
Dr. David Borman
Leading Teams That Perform
Choruses and orchestras. Companies and growth teams. Two stages, one discipline: align a lot of people to one vision, and deliver it live.
Conductor & Operator
Leading Teams That Perform
Choruses and orchestras. Companies and growth teams. Two stages, one discipline: align a lot of people to one vision, and deliver it live.
The Thesis
Conducting is not a metaphor for leadership. It is leadership, practiced in public, in real time, with no place to hide.
A conductor reads the room as it happens, aligns dozens of people to a single interpretation, and personally owns what the audience hears. A good operator does exactly the same thing.
I have spent my career on both stages: in front of choruses and orchestras, and inside companies where the sections are called sales, operations, and finance. The work is the same. Set the tempo. Cue the entrances. Cut whatever muddies the texture.
Ed.D., Organizational Leadership · Spalding University
M.M., Orchestral Conducting · University of Louisville
Case Study · The Louisville Chorus
Established 1939 · 86th Season
When I was appointed Artistic Director of the Louisville Chorus, Kentucky's longest continuously performing choral organization, I inherited the repertoire and the balance sheet in the same handshake.
Most artistic directors treat the second half of that sentence as somebody else's problem. I treated it as the same problem. The systems I run for growth clients went to work for an 86 year old arts institution: paid social that actually converts, a real sponsorship pipeline, donor development across corporate, individual, and grant channels.
The result is an institution performing on both stages. Attendance up twenty percent. Membership up thirty one percent. Donation dollars up one hundred seventy four percent. The budget up one hundred fifty percent. And the art got bigger, not smaller: sold out multimedia productions like Beyond the Stars at the Kentucky Science Center, live choral music beneath four stories of NASA imagery.
Nobody has to choose between the mission and the math. That is the whole point.
David walked into an institution with 86 years of history and treated the music and the mission like they both deserved his best. We have never sounded better, and we have never been stronger.Jenna PrestonThe Louisville Chorus
On the Podium Next
Guest conducting, music direction, speaking, and adjudication dates are booked by inquiry.
Press & Media
Two Stages
con espressione
The podium taught me to hear balance. Turns out a P&L is just another score.
con moto
The boardroom taught me that every team is an ensemble. Most have just never been rehearsed.
From the Archive
Stephen Schwartz, arranged by Michael Brown. Full ensemble, full send.
On YouTubeMovements I and II with the Louisville Civic Orchestra, Kentucky's oldest orchestra.
On YouTubeOrchestra meets rock band at Big 4 Station, Jeffersonville. A very Louisville evening.
On YouTubeAbout
Dr. David Borman (he/him) is an energetic conductor, performer, and teacher who understands the unique power of music to educate, inspire, and advocate. He is also a businessman, and he has stopped apologizing for the "and."
He holds a Master of Music in orchestral conducting from the University of Louisville, where he studied with Professor Kimcherie Lloyd, and a doctorate in Organizational Leadership from Spalding University. A euphonium player by training, he found his instrument the day he traded it for a baton.
As Artistic Director of the Louisville Chorus, he led one of the most complete turnarounds in the region's arts community, pairing ambitious programming with the growth systems he runs as Partner and VP of Operations at Key Outreach. He founded and sold GetLit502, founded the Derby City Chamber Orchestra, and consults for organizations that want their mission and their math performing in the same key.
He conducts. Orchestras, choruses, companies. It is all the same downbeat.
Louisville, Kentucky
Coda
Hiring a conductor, courting a sponsor, booking a speaker, or something that does not have a name yet. Email me. I read everything, and the interesting ones get answered fast.