David Hyslop would regularly thumb rides from the Ithaca College campus in New York to take in performances by the orchestras in Chicago, Cleveland, and Buffalo. “When I was in my second year in college, I fell in love with the sound and repertoire or orchestras,” says Hyslop, who turned his love of orchestral music into a life’s work.
As president and CEO from 1991 to 2003 of the Minnesota Orchestra Association—which operates both the orchestra and Orchestra Hall—Hyslop developed and implemented long-term strategies, planned and managed budgets, and managed artistic and administrative staff. Now he’s offering his extensive management experience to arts organizations throughout the United States.
In August, he launched Minneapolis-based Hyslop & Associates, whose areas of specialization are executive search and recruiting, strategic planning, fundraising strategies, and providing organizations with an objective perspective regarding internal problems. Hyslop’s clients have included the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra.
In a sense, Hyslop & Associates began in 2004, when Hyslop and Doug Patti, a former executive with the American Symphony Orchestra League, an orchestra “trade association” based in New York City, founded a consulting firm called Executive Arts Resources. But as Hyslop explains, “Doug had a young family, and I think all the road stuff was just too much.” The partnership was dissolved after three years, but Hyslop decided to carry on.
“Initially, the market that was there was orchestras—a lot of them, ranging in size from tiny ones to big year-round operations like the Houston Symphony,” Hyslop says. “What I’ve endeavored to do since I started consulting is take my skills and broaden my reach beyond orchestras.” He has done work for the Santa Fe Opera and the Sun Valley Arts Center, a Ketchum, Idaho, organization that enlisted him to help fill a key staff position. Hyslop also has been contracted to determine the feasibility of remodeling the Grand Theatre in Wheaton, Illinois, and the constructing of a performing arts center in Federal Way, Washington.
“Typically, feasibility studies are done by a consultant that comes from either academia or from a development company,” Hyslop says. “What I bring is the fact that I’ve done feasibility studies as a consultant, but I’ve also been the CEO that had to implement an entire study, and I’ve been on volunteer boards where I’ve been involved with the campaign. I’ve seen it from all three sides of an organization, and that’s been helpful, I think, to my clients.”
Hyslop’s current billings are now about $250,000. “Over a three-year period, I’d like to take us over $500,000,” he says.
