Creative Problem Solving for Music Entrepreneurs: The Two Mindsets of Creativity

picture-26

How can a group of 20-something professional musician graduate students generate breakthrough solutions to the problems facing classical music today in order to insure the health and the vitality of the field? This was the focus of my new class last semester at the Yale School of Music entitled Collaboration, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. My goal was to teach creative problem …

How To Jumpstart Your Career Satisfaction: Take the Career Assessment

Wheel-of-Life-Career-Assessment

Happy New Year! I hope that you enjoyed the holiday season and are looking forward to great things in the coming year! I am not big on New Year’s resolutions since it’s too easy to set yourself up for failure by reaching for unrealistic goals. Instead, I encourage people to reflect on the important areas of their lives and assess …

Sō Percussion’s Model of Success: The Collaborative Entrepreneurial Ensemble

Jason small

One of the highlights of my class at Yale is when I invite alumni from the School of Music to speak to the students about their experience. Since my class this semester is focused on collaboration, I was thrilled to invite Jason Treuting and Eric Beach, two of the four members of the percussion ensemble Sō Percussion. Jason Treuting is the longest standing …

Know Your Purpose and Share Your Vision: How Music Entrepreneurs Find Their Collaborators

Collaboration

Classical music faces a lot of challenges today and my goal in teaching and working with musicians is to help them find their place in the world of music and contribute something valuable and innovative. This fall, I began teaching a new class at Yale, entitled “Collaboration, Entrepreneurship and Innovation”. The premise of the course is that today’s artists need …

1

The Art of Collaboration: Top 10 Skills for Creative Success

5120100 71f7446b59 z

This semester, I am teaching a new course at the Yale School of Music using the collaborative project as the vehicle through which to teach arts entrepreneurship and innovation. Arts entrepreneurship involves coming up with innovative ideas that create value to society and actualizing those ideas. Collaboration is more than teamwork, where there is a leader to set the agenda and …

Mock Auditions at the Yale School of Music: A Rich Growth Experience for Music Entrepreneurs

PTW 4158

Last week, students at the Yale School of Music were treated to an extraordinary experience: mock orchestral auditions with a panel of 3 world-class musicians: Maestro Peter Oundjian, Music Director of Toronto Symphony and former first violin of the Tokyo String Quartet, and two professors from the Yale School of Music, William Purvis (French Horn) and Robert Van Sice (Percussion). Nine brave student …

Using Music to Solve Problems: How Music Entrepreneurs Discover Solutions in 3 Steps

5216552979 119b40080e z

How can the process of learning how to perform music help music entrepreneurs and arts leaders solve difficult leadership problems when the answers are not obvious? This was among the questions under discussion at last week’s Opera America’s Leadership Intensive Next Steps (LINS) program, which brought together 15 talented mid-career opera managers to provide advanced leadership training in order to retain high-quality leaders …

Managing the Downturns: 4 Happiness Strategies for Coping with Challenge

Challenges4Life

” Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon This summer, I planned to take it a bit easier. I scheduled a few teaching engagements, intended to concentrate on the piano, and planned a trip to California to meet my new baby grandson. The rest of the time was going to be devoted to …