This story was picked up by the League of American Orchestras and featured in their news updates to their membership.

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Here's an excerpt from Jeffrey Johnson's feature.

Released last week, the book is an engaging story that follows the experiential path of a protagonist who is an executive struggling to bring together the diverse groups and functions under his charge. He is introduced to an orchestral conductor and allowed to hear a rehearsal of the orchestra while sitting quietly in the viola section. It is a revelation to him.

The protagonist sees the potential to develop skills from orchestral practice to create a competitive advantage in his business. He hires the conductor to do a seminar to share the experience with all of his coworkers. The conductor addresses this new audience, saying orchestra skills -- the ability to work in teams, communicate effectively and rapidly, exercise leadership at all levels, and align around a vision -- enable an organization to speak with one voice.

In "Maestro," Nierenberg has found away to articulate this vision.

"The book is also about music," Nierenberg said in a recent interview. "I wanted the reader to come away with a heightened appetite for hearing music and going to concerts."

Nierenberg accomplishes this by placing in the book detailed references to the "Scottish" symphony by Felix Mendelssohn. Instead of asking the strings to play quieter at the beginning of the allegro in the first movement, for example, the conductor asks them to play so they can hear the clarinet part, which doubles the music an octave lower. This detail of the score, hidden in most performances and recordings, engages the artistry of the players by focusing their attention on a detail of the music which is unusual and interesting.

"Playing quiet doesn't liberate anything," Nierenberg said, whimsically. "(Instead) it is about leadership and enabling in some way. Musicians produce better results when their artistry is engaged."

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