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Kathryn Miller Ginsburg originally planned to perform and play clarinet in an orchestra. Although she didn’t take a seat on stage, the alumna of the Michigan State University College of Music did take a seat in orchestra management. 

In February 2022, Ginsburg was promoted to General Manager at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Before that, she had worked 11 seasons in DSO administration, including posts as operations and pops coordinator, artistic manager, and senior director of operations and orchestra manager.

“I knew when I first applied to the DSO that this was what I wanted to do,” said Ginsburg, a 2008 MSU Honors College graduate who earned her bachelor’s in clarinet performance. “The idea of being immersed in music full-time cinched the decision.”

As an MSU alumna, Ginsburg’s leadership position at the DSO further strengthens a long history of partnership between the orchestra and the MSU College of Music. In addition to Ginsburg, DSO Assistant Principle Oboe Sarah Lewis is an MSU alumna, and three College faculty members are full-time performers in the orchestra, including Assistant Professor of Double Bass Kevin Brown, Assistant Professor of Viola Eric Nowlin, and the newest member of the faculty, Assistant Professor of Viola Mike Chen.

Starting out

Ginsburg confessed that she grew up in Ann Arbor in a family of die-hard University of Michigan fans. She laughed that they “forgave her” when she decided to study clarinet performance at MSU after graduating high school in 2004.

Her father, an amateur clarinetist, highly influenced her musical path. Later, she influenced his. 

“We enjoy going to see my dad play in a summer community band,” she said. “It has been one of his hobbies for close to 20 years, and something I convinced him to do.” 

In addition to her father’s influence, her love for music blossomed during the six summers she spent attending Interlochen.

“I looked forward to going to Interlochen all school year,” said Ginsburg. “It was great from a musical standpoint to be around people who play really well and make great music. The idea that studying music in college is an expanded version of Interlochen really appealed to me.”

At MSU, Ginsburg joined the Clarinet Studio.  At various times she was a member of the Wind Symphony, the Symphony Band, and several chamber music groups. One year, she played in the Concert Band after teaching herself to play the saxophone.

“One of my roommates was a saxophone major, and we thought it would be fun to switch instruments and play in the concert band for a semester,” said Ginsburg. “So we joined. She played clarinet and I played saxophone for a semester, and it was a lot of fun.”

A time of self-reflection

During her senior year, Ginsburg started to think differently about her musical career. The realization was gradual and culminated after she was accepted into the master’s program at the University of New Mexico. The first turning point came when she traveled with the MSU Wind Symphony to the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference in Illinois. The Wind Symphony rehearsed at a Chicago high school and invited students to watch. Afterward, members of the Wind Symphony had dinner with students.

“It was the first time I had really thought about how you can impact people through music,” she said. “It was really cool to see how music was so much a part of the students’ lives.”

Around the same time, Ginsburg realized that while she loved playing the clarinet, she loved to be around people and to work with them. As she approached her master’s degree, she understood she would need to commit huge swaths of time to solitary practicing to perform at the highest level.

Ginsburg began talking with her teacher Ted Oien—then an associate professor of clarinet at MSU. At the time, Oien was also the principal clarinet for the DSO and was acquainted with arts administrators. He helped her to think about internship opportunities, and how she could blend those experiences with her performance studies.

“He was a great resource for me,” said Ginsburg. “He said by interning, I would come out of school having a good sense of what I wanted to do, and also have the experience to back it up.”

The advice was completely in line with what students are encouraged to do today through the College’s Running Start Program which helps with internships, jobs, entrepreneurship opportunities, and more. Ginsburg worked in the MSU band library while she finished her bachelor’s degree, and the summer after graduation she served as an orchestra management intern at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Throughout her master’s program, she interned at the University of New Mexico’s Popejoy Hall.

“I discovered that arts administration was everything I was looking for to stay connected to music and performance,” Ginsburg said. “It was a way to make music relevant to people from another angle.”

Coming home

Shortly after completing her master’s in 2011, Ginsburg returned to Michigan and landed her first job at the DSO. Today, she’s responsible for the Orchestra and performance operations. She oversees staff in personnel, stage crew, operations, and webcast production, and is the primary administrative liaison to the members of the orchestra. She negotiates musician and stage crew contracts, schedules the orchestra season, plans and executes orchestra tours, and oversees recording projects. 

“We have great teams in all these areas,” she said. “The most meaningful part of my job is building relationships and finding ways to work collaboratively to produce the best possible performances on stage.”

Ginsburg is perpetually reminded of her MSU experience as she interacts with musicians who have ties to the university, including alumni, current and retired faculty, and interns. The reminders are there at home, too, given that her husband, Adam, is a percussionist and teacher who earned his master’s degree from the MSU College of Music in percussion performance in 2007.

“As a student, I had the experience of studying with a DSO player, who also helped me set my career goals,” she said. “The relationship with MSU is incredibly valuable for the opportunities it can create.”