The COVID pandemic has taken its toll on higher education, with many universities pivoting to the virtual realm. Notwithstanding the challenges of on-line education, the students in my graduate seminar at the Yale School of Music successfully designed and executed four innovative entrepreneurial projects. These projects addressed the problem of how to ensure the place of classical music in the …
The Innovation Process in the Time of COVID: Entrepreneurial Projects at the Yale School of Music
What a year this has been! With the COVID pandemic raging, our lives pivoted online, including my graduate seminar at the Yale School of Music entitled Collaboration, Creativity and Innovation. The focus of this year’s class was how to ensure the place of classical music at a time when COVID has shut down the performing arts sector. Our learning vehicle …
The Coronavirus Pandemic: 5 Questions to Stay Positive Through Challenging Times
The Coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed to our lives. Social distancing has become the new normal and much of our life is now spent on-line. Those of us in the education sector are now teaching through Zoom. When Yale School of Music students returned to school last week, they found a very different world. Online teaching for performing artists is …
Innovative Entrepreneurial Projects: Engaging Today’s Audience Through Classical Music
The focus of this year’s Collaboration and Innovation class at the Yale School of Music was engaging audiences through classical music. We had three project groups exploring different ways to expand the classical music audience using different interactive strategies. The culmination of these projects was our final class where each group presents its project. Let’s see how each group tackled the …
Creative Success Now: Writing the Book I Wanted to Read
My new book, Creative Success Now, was just published! It’s a roadmap on how to ignite creativity and inspire creatives of all stripes to get their ideas out into the world and thrive in today’s world. I was inspired to write my new book thanks to my experience with hundreds of creatives, teaching at Yale University’s School of Music and coaching …
Innovation and Feedback: An Essential Step for Entrepreneurial Projects
Why is feedback essential to innovation? Let’s examine how students in my Innovation and Collaboration class at the Yale School of Music are learning this lesson through their semester projects. When we last left the music entrepreneurs , the class had explored the needs of today’s audiences and zeroed in on the problem of how to make classical music more relevant …
Today’s Audience For Classical Music: How to Make Classical Music Relevant and Accessible
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 …
Tap into Passion and Purpose: How to Ignite Your Creative Career
This past week, I had the privilege of speaking on Creative Success Now: How to Ignite Your Passion and Purpose for Successful Creative Careers” to students at Yale University. My talk attracted a variety of students who were intrigued about creativity and turning their passion and purpose into a successful career. These included singers, composers, performers, an aspiring novelist, several …
Innovation for Music Entrepreneurs: Get Creative with Implementation
One of the hallmarks of my class at the Yale School of Music, Creating Value Through Innovative Projects, is that students learn by taking action. My seminar’s focus is how to generate innovative solutions to the most pressing problems in classical music today. Over the course of the past semester, my students worked collaboratively on four different creative projects. Three …
Ideation and Incubation: How Music Entrepreneurs Expand and Improve Their Creative Ideas
When we last left the students in my Innovation and Collaboration class at the Yale School of Music, they identified the key problems of their audiences. The next order of business was to come up with some creative ideas for solving these problems. We entered the phase of creative problem solving known as “ideation” where students have brainstormed using a variety of …










