Every fall, I have the privilege of teaching a project-based seminar to a group of budding music entrepreneurs at the Yale School of Music. The class, Creating Value Through Innovative Collaborative Projects (Music 621a), addresses the problem of how to keep classical music alive and vital in our culture. My goal is to equip my students with leadership and innovation …
Design Thinking for Music Entrepreneurs: How to Generate Creative Solutions for Audience Engagement
How do we solve the problem of attracting millennials to classical music events and building an audience for the future? My students at Mannes College of Music at the New School might have an answer! Through a class project that lasted less than a week, our students used the 5-step Design Thinking process to understand the needs of their millennial peers …
Creativity for Music Entrepreneurs Part IV: 4 Steps to Develop and Improve Your Idea
What happens when you have come up with lots of big, juicy ideas for your innovative solution? Is that enough to create a workable solution to your problem? Not so fast! When we last left the music entrepreneurs in my Innovation and Collaboration class at the Yale School of Music, they had gone through the stage of the creativity problem …
Innovation in the Arts: What the Olympics and Happy Hour Can Teach Us About Audience Development
How could the Olympics and Happy Hour possibly help lead to a solution on how to attract more audiences to classical music? This was the topic of a fascinating workshop that I led last weekend at the Juilliard School Leadership Retreat on The 21st Century Artist as Entrepreneur and Innovator. My goal? To tap into the creativity of today’s bright young …
Turning Arts Entrepreneurs into Inspired Leaders: Know Your WHY
My project in working with musicians and arts leaders is not only to teach arts entrepreneurship—the mindset, skillset and process of actualizing an innovative idea—but also to take entrepreneurship to the next level of cultural leadership To do so, I have my students articulate the greater purpose underlying WHY they make music, teach, perform and then communicate that purpose to the …
Your Brand and The Perfect World: Branding as a Vehicle for Audience Development
This week, my class took on the subject of branding. I love teaching musicians about how to create and use their brand because the right brand is a self-empowering message about the best of you and your promise of quality to your Ideal Audience–the people whom you are eager to attract.
A brand is not about you-it is about communicating your promise to your Ideal Audience. By helping to forge a powerful emotional connection with that audience, a brand becomes a tool that not only inspires you to be your best but also boosts your confidence and projects positive energy to those around you: a true win/win
Audience development is one of the major challenges facing classical musicians today and we are living in a world where the relationship between musicians and their audiences presents a tremendous opportunity to advance the field. That was certainly an important theme in the recent seminar at Yale on the Role of Technology in the future of music.
While musicians sometimes resist the idea of “pitching” to a target audience on the theory that it is antithetical to their authenticity and personal growth and is too limiting (until they realize how connected a brand is to one’s artistic purpose), I firmly believe that identifying and connecting with the right audiences is critical no only for one’s professional development but also to solidify our field. Thus, I include the target audience into my branding discussions so that my students begin to carve out the part of the audience with which they resonate.
That brings us to artistic mission:
How Musicians Can Leverage the Power of Technology: Advice from the Experts
This week, I had the privilege of moderating a panel at the Yale School of Music on the Role of Technology and its impact on the field of classical music. Our three speakers contributed their unique perspectives on the impact of technology on the dissemination and promotion of classical music: Greg Anderson, a 2008 Yale School of Music graduate and …