The Köln Concert and the Art of Adaptive Management.

On January 24th, 1975, Keith Jarrett, who was already gaining prominence in the jazz scene, arrived at the Cologne Opera House for a performance, known as the Köln Concert. Exhausted from travel and back pain, he discovered that the staff had mistakenly provided a small, poorly maintained rehearsal piano instead of the Bösendorfer concert grand he requested. The piano had uneven action, broken pedals, and a thin, tinny sound in the upper registers. Vera Brandes, then a 17-year-old German concert promoter, desperately implored Jarrett to go on--pleading, cursing, and cajoling, despite his determined refusal to do so.

Jarrett ultimately decided to go ahead, drawing on his improvisational genius to transcend the instrument's limitations. The entire evening was improvised. The result was a mesmerizing, spontaneous masterpiece that captured the raw emotion and creative resilience of the moment, turning adversity into one of the most celebrated and best selling piano recordings in jazz history.

It is fair to say that we are entering into an extended period of uncertainty in the performing arts. Notwithstanding the current political climate, arts managers are struggling to figure out what the future of the industry holds. The National Endowment for the Arts has been surveying public participation in the arts since 1982; the 2022 survey reflects the changing nature of participation in a post-COVID world (report below). A sampling of industry disciplines adds to the narrative of uncertainty:

A survey conducted by Dance/USA covering March 2020 through February 2021 revealed that dance-making organizations experienced a loss of over 75% in ticket revenues compared to their pre-COVID seasons. The survey included 214 dance organizations, representing about 30% of the approximately 710 dance companies in the U.S. as of 2019.

At the same time, a study conducted by Opera America in November 2024 paints a different picture. Their conclusion is that opera companies across North America have reported record levels of first-time attenders. This was a continuation of a trend that was observed pre-COVID; the challenge for opera companies is how to encourage first-time attenders to return and remain opera fans.

Finally, the 2023-2024 annual report of the Broadway League paints a mixed picture; ticket sales rose 0.4% over the 2022-2023 season, which is comparable to the Broadway scene almost a decade ago, but far from the picture of success that Broadway enjoyed just before the COVID shutdown.

In my home state of Colorado, of the 117 active theater companies that performed in 2020, only 73 remain. Many of these organizations were smaller, independent companies that were already struggling with limited space, resources, or funds.

What does all this mean for the arts administrator? Consider again the ephemeral brilliance of the Köln Concert:

Improvisation: The entire concert was improvised, showing Jarrett’s capacity to respond in real time to the moment. His playing was fluid and unpredictable, yet deeply cohesive. This speaks to a mindset where one must remain open to unfolding possibilities, even when the conditions are not ideal.
Creativity Under Pressure: The challenge of a faulty piano led Jarrett to explore new and unexpected sounds, leaning into the piano’s limitations and using them to shape the concert. He turned constraints into opportunities, which can be seen as a metaphor for innovation.
Presence and Flow: Jarrett was fully present during the performance, engaging deeply with the moment to create something fleeting yet profound. Leaders too must find a balance between strategic foresight and the ability to be fully present in the current situation.

Required reading for any serious arts manager is Bill Byrne's Management and the Arts. Chapter 3, Adaptive Management, gets to the heart of the matter. Adaptive management is a systematic, flexible approach to management that involves learning from outcomes and adjusting strategies based on new information and changing conditions. It is most commonly used in environmental and natural resource management. Byrnes introduces the concept in arts management by calling it Adaptation is the Norm:

The arts or nonprofit organization that does not adapt to changes in the world around it is likely to be less effective in fulfilling its mission. If it is too rigid or too slow to change, it runs the risk of becoming stagnant, irrelevant, or even ceasing to exist. Ultimately, the people working in the organization will pay the price for this lack of adaptability.*

Keith Jarrett's performance in the Köln Concert is a prime example of mastery, improvisation, and responsiveness to constraints and uncertainty. Jarrett himself expressed mixed feelings about the concert over the years. Initially, he wasn’t particularly happy with the performance due to the challenging circumstances surrounding it. Over time, his perspective changed as he saw how much the recording resonated with listeners. He came to appreciate it more as he recognized how it captured a raw, spontaneous moment of adaptability. As a management model for the arts, it fits the mindset a leader must have when adapting to the uncertainty of our times. Listen to the record. Find the imperfections and adaptations and channel the Köln experience.

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*William Byrnes, *Management and the Arts*, 2022, 6th ed. (New York: Routledge), p. 71.