Tine Schuster, Assistant to the General Manager Prof. Andreas Richter, has been with the MCO since February 2008. She is responsible for travel planning, appointment-making, and generally making sure the office runs smoothly. She is the connection between outside and inside and the contact person for all organisational issues—mostly for  the General Manager, but also for the office in general.

At the beginning of her career, it wasn’t apparent that she would come to hold her current job in an orchestra office. After completing high school in Frankfurt am Main, she trained as a ballet dancer and ballet mistress at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich. Until the birth of her children, she worked as a ballet mistress in Munich and in Hamburg. In Berlin, after years of raising children, she sought a way to re-enter professional life. After first holding an internship at the Federal Ministry for Families, she started work at the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, first as an intern and then in the orchestra office. In 2007, she completed formal training as a management assistant.

Her first love is the ballet, but she is passionate about other dance forms, classical music, concerts and all forms of the written word. When it comes to music-making, she lets her children take the lead.

What is her favourite part of the MCO?

“Experiences with the day-to-day matters of an orchestra, and living with my three school-age children, have showed me how important good organisation, efficient planning, good team communication, and transparency are for a pleasant and motivating working environment. Since the MCO is a touring orchestra, all of these have to function perfectly. Otherwise we can’t fulfil our goal of producing top-quality concerts and operas — without state support.