Executive Search & Consulting for Orchestras and Classical Music Organizations
TOC Arts Partners conducts national executive searches and provides organizational strategy consulting for orchestras, symphony orchestras, and classical music organizations across the United States. With deep experience in the classical music field and an equity-centered approach, we help orchestras hire the leaders and build the structures that carry their missions forward.
Why Orchestras Work With TOC Arts Partners
Orchestras navigate leadership dynamics unlike any other arts organization. The relationship between arts administrators and music direction is one of the most complex partnerships in the sector: two distinct forms of authority that must align on vision, budget, and community identity, often with significant board, musician, and donor input. TOC Arts Partners understands this from the inside.
The pressures on classical music organizations are real: subscription model erosion, the challenge of reaching new audiences, collective bargaining, and the weight of institutional legacy. Finding leaders who can hold all of that requires a search partner with genuine sector depth. TOC Arts Partners is not a generalist firm that also serves the arts. We are an arts firm, and classical music is one of the fields we know best.
Our clients have included some of the most recognized names in American classical music. We bring equity-centered sourcing and rigorous process to every orchestra search, with the added fluency that comes from years of working inside this vertical.
Executive Search for Orchestras & Classical Music Organizations
TOC Arts Partners conducts national executive searches for orchestras and classical music organizations, placing leaders across CEO/Executive Director, Managing Director, Director of Development, Director of Marketing and Communications, and other senior roles, often at the VP level. Our search process is equity-centered, thorough, and built around the specific culture, governance structure, and community of your organization.
Customized Strategy
We design a full search process that reflects your organization’s unique context, from stakeholder engagement to candidate evaluation, ensuring alignment, buy-in, and a leadership fit that lasts.
Human Touch
Our expertise and insights deliver unexpected and exciting options no algorithm can, along with an exceptional candidate experience.
Commitment to DEIA
We leverage our network, community partnerships, and proprietary research process to deliver a diverse and equitable candidate pool primed for success. More than 30% of our placements across all verticals identify as BIPOC.
Our Promise
If our hire stays less than one year, we will deliver additional candidates free of charge. We are committed to their success and yours.
Roles We Typically Search For
Executive Director / President & CEO | Managing Director | Director of Development | Director of Marketing & Communications | Vice President of Marketing & Communications | Chief Operating Officer | Director of Education & Community Engagement
Featured Placements
Grand Rapids Symphony
Vice President of Marketing and Communications: TOC placed the VP of Marketing and Communications at Grand Rapids Symphony, one of Michigan’s premier orchestras.
Tucson Symphony Orchestra
Vice President of Marketing & Communications: TOC placed the VP of Marketing & Communications at Tucson Symphony Orchestra, a leading regional orchestra in the Southwest.
Flint Institute of Music
Multiple Placements: TOC has placed three leaders at Flint Institute of Music: Vice President of Artistic and Community Programs, Senior Manager of Audience Insights, and Director of Marketing. A sustained, multi-role client relationship with a community music institution in Flint, Michigan.
Consulting & Strategy for Orchestras & Classical Music Organizations
Beyond executive search, TOC Arts Partners provides organizational strategy and consulting for theatre companies at every scale. From strategic planning and structural consultation to change management and brand strategy, we help theatre organizations build the internal structures and long-term strategies their work demands.
Structural Consultation
Optimize your team structures for efficiency and effectiveness, whether you’re assessing a marketing division, a development department, or your entire senior leadership.
Strategic Planning
Prioritize your future with facilitated processes and customized strategies designed for orchestras navigating growth, transition, or reinvention.
Community Engagement
Build meaningful relationships that deepen impact, loyalty, and reach across subscribers, donors, new audiences, and the broader community your orchestra serves.
Special Projects
Collaborate with a seasoned thought partner for everything from retreat facilitation to program design, tailored to the realities of classical music organizations.
Revenue Strategy
Unlock sustainable growth with strategies that align mission and market, grounded in the earned and contributed revenue realities of classical music organizations.
Change Management
Navigate leadership transitions with confidence, clear communication, and expertise. In orchestras, those transitions carry particular weight. We bring sector fluency to every step.
Our Work With Orchestras & Classical Music Organizations
TOC Arts Partners has partnered with orchestras and classical music institutions on executive searches, marketing assessments, and organizational strategy engagements across the United States.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Marketing Division Assessment & Structural Consultation
The BSO engaged TOC during a marketing leadership transition to evaluate team structure and workflows. We delivered a reorganization plan built around four internal verticals, a change management strategy co-developed with a technology consultant, and full job descriptions for the new team. Both the structural analysis and the human-centered change management process to bring it to life.
Carnegie Hall
Ongoing Strategic Marketing Advisory
Since 2020, TOC has provided continuous strategic marketing support to Carnegie Hall across their subscription season, student ticket program, and Carnegie Hall+ streaming channel, including a data partnership with Baker Richards. Carnegie Hall is the most recognized classical music institution in the world, and ours is the longest ongoing relationship in our portfolio.
Let’s Work Together
Interested in working together? Tell us about how we can support your organization and we’ll be in touch.