Acknowledging Privilege for Classical Arts

This year I gave my fifth annual talk at the Fresh Inc. Festival for young musicians. I love helping artists. As usual, I spoke about the role of crowdfunding in the life of a young musician. But I tried to take classical music’s privilege a bit more seriously this year, and to address the differences …

Junior Bach Tenth Anniversary

Probably the first branding meeting I ever ran was with a group of seventh graders. It was ten years ago, and we were naming the program (and concert) that had been going by “composers club” up until that point. Those seventh graders were composers, and the concert needed a name, so I thought they should …

Speaking at the New Music Gathering

The inaugural New Music Gathering just announced its line-up, and it’s really fun. I’m pretty excited to be speaking on some issues related to careers in the arts, and also to be doing what they’re billing as “therapy”, which is mostly “career therapy”. Given how much stress there is associated with being an artist, and …

Arts Entrepreneurship is a Resistance Movement

There’s been a lot of great discussion of arts entrepreneurship on NewMusicBox recently. There’s a lot of good stuff there, and also plenty I disagree with. The emphasis on arts entrepreneurship in education in particular has come under some fire. Teaching young artists this stuff is about helping them to survive in an unfair world. …