Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Perhaps the ultimate influencers, orpheus shows how 'leaderless'organizations can get real results.

What's a chamber music orchestra doing at a business meeting? Giving a lesson in leadership, of course.

But then again, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is no ordinary orchestra, as the rapt audience of Page members quickly learned. Formed in 1972 by a small group of recent Juilliard School graduates, Orpheus is both an exercise in democracy with all of the players having equal say on interpretive matters and an example of the quintessential flat, non-hierarchical organization. Their claim to fame is that they are an orchestra without a conductor. A seat at their table means accepting the rule of influence and collaboration over the traditional command-and-control model.

Audiences around the world have been enthralled by the precise, energetic and carefully shaped performances of Orpheus. But until you witness the way they achieve such splendid results, you can't truly appreciate what you are hearing.

For this Seminar, the 26 musicians who make up Orpheus filed into the Astor Room in mid-afternoon and set up in the center of the room. The members were invited to turn their chairs so they completely surrounded the orchestra, literally looking over their shoulders. And then the magic began.

Brief remarks by Executive Director Harvey Seifter and Artistic Coordinator Ronnie Bauch set the stage for what the members were about to see. Their intent, it was explained, was to show how their style of performing relates to different aspects of managing an organization. While Orpheus has no obvious central control, they are organized around teams that overlap and link up. A sort of core leadership is made up of representatives of each section or team, and they hammer out the basic interpretation before a full rehearsal, which is led by a concertmaster. To avoid hierarchies forming, the core leadership and the choice of a concertmaster for each work is constantly changing. The final product, the piece that is performed on the concert stage, is shaped by an intensive rehearsal process that has evolved over the years. This is what the Page membership witnessed.

Concertmaster Richard Rood began the rehearsal, leading the orchestra through the first few bars of the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony #1 in C Major. Pausing, he listened along with the rest of the players as the first cellist made a suggestion about tempo. They started again, pausing long enough to get a suggestion from another member of the ensemble. The process continued: play, pause, comment, play, pause, comment. In this way, they were distilling the core group's plan or interpretation into one voice with any musician free to call out suggestions or objections during the pauses.

As Seifter pointed out in his opening remarks, the conductor is king in the standard orchestra and there is no give-and-take among the musicians. Much as a corporate vice president's word can be final in a tightly structured company, musicians do not question a conductor during rehearsal. The conductor's message may be clear, but there is little group creativity - something Orpheus strives to achieve.

After allowing the Page members to observe at some length the Orpheus rehearsal process, Bauch asked if there were any questions. They came from all parts of the room. It was obvious that the style of leadership exhibited by this unique chamber orchestra was indeed a role model for business. The diversity of opinion makes us a stronger orchestra, one musician said. "We are all actively involved in the creative process. As a result, we have tremendous energy and vitality because each individual is engaged and responsible for the final product."

The final product was on display as the orchestra-without-a-conductor concluded the leadership training exercise by playing the entire Beethoven piece the musicians had been rehearsing. It was, in the Orpheus tradition, a rousing finish.