Every country, society, and culture places a different value on the arts.

It’s no secret that Americans love pop culture.  Meanwhile, our symphonies, orchestras, and ballets are struggling to stay in business.

In Holland, social workers are trained in the arts for the purpose of improving communities and everyday quality of life through arts learning and participation.

Meanwhile, in Bali, gamelan concerts can last for hours and sometimes days.

In Lima, Peru, concerts often start two hours later than scheduled.

No matter where you go, there may be subtle or obvious cultural differences from the way we do things in the United States.

Working in the realm of international arts management means learning to understand and work with those cultural differences.  

As arts managers in the United States presenting work from abroad, it is our duty to understand international artists and their art as best we can.

It then becomes our job to figure out how to effectively pass along that information to audiences.

How can we accurately portray another culture on an American concert stage? How do we do justice to cultural practices that may be a way of life and not a concert-like event?

With globalization continually increasing, American culture is being exported all over the world.

With the increased ease of travel and innovations in technological resources, many foreign artists are living in the United States and are often managed by U.S. companies.

Many artists, especially those from lesser developed nations, are likely to earn a better living in the U.S. than they would at home. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I have no answer for that, except to say that while we might disapprove of artists leaving their native countries, it is also not our role to decide where individual people should live.

Is globalization hurting the traditional or “high arts” in the United States and abroad?

With the widespread use of the internet, iTunes, and YouTube, pop culture has become increasingly accessible. However, the access to traditional and folk arts is still extremely limited.

How can we use modern technology to preserve and market our heritage and traditional arts?

Also, technological advances are partially responsible for a decline in the number of people attending live performances, do we want to use technology to preserve or promote traditional arts? It seems counterproductive to the actual experience.  How do we as arts managers handle this?

As someone pursuing a career in international arts management, I have more questions than answers.

However, I have come to realize that the greater the effort we make to understand and appreciate each other’s cultures and artistic ways, the easier it will be for us to work together, whatever the challenges may be.