The Entrepreneurial Musician

A little spiel (starting my career as an entrepreneurial musician)

I’m so grateful for the opportunities and resources I’ve been exposed to that helped me get to where I am today. I’m incredibly lucky to have been inspired and helped by so many wonderful teachers and mentors and these brilliantly driven, eccentric, passionate personalities.

So, a big thanks to the list of artists and educators and entrepreneurs who have touched my life and career. To name just a few…

~ Rachel Roberts and the Entrepreneurial Musicianship department at New England Conservatory with its incredibly supportive team (thank you for the millions of reference letters and for opening up the world of entrepreneurship to me)

~ the Community Performances and Performances program led by Tanya Maggi

~ my long time hero Tanya Kalmanovitch (I’ve taken so many things from your EM class truly to heart, and all the big and small wisdoms you’ve shared personally with our Slow Toasters ensemble or on your public social media <3)

~ the ever sincere passionate cool energetic vibrant entrepreneur and innovator Sarah Whitney (following your career and posts always fills me with such passion and energy)

All that is to say, as a young professional, I want to pass on the information, the experiences and pieces of tips and encouragement and honesty about the struggles, the challenges, the rewards. That’s why I was so excited about this lecture! Hope more young artists can find rewarding engaging fulfilling ways to share their work and passion with the world~

I’ve posted my notes and some resources here. Please don’t hesitate to ask me questions!!! I love how much I’m learning myself from this teaching experience ☺️ ~ thank you for a great semester, can’t wait to develop more on my ideas and thoughts!

Music as a profession presentation

I’d like to introduce you to some ideas and thoughts about entrepreneurship, how it can launch your career, share my experiences, explore social media tools

Slide 2 Introduction 

• What are skills/traits of entrepreneurial musician?

• Soft vs. hard skills difference?

  • Hard skills are teachable and measurable abilities, such as writing, reading, math or ability to use computer programs (performance skills on your instrument). By contrast, soft skills are the traits that make you a good employee, such as etiquette, communication and listening, getting along with other people

  • *negotiating, selling, empathy, time management, critical thinking

Here are some traits of the successful entrepreneur.

1. Disciplined

*work ethics 

2. Confidence

*fake it till you make it

how do you dress and present yourself? Wearing blazers vs. comfy clothes, bold sparkly silver dresses, how do you walk on stage? How do you smile? MAKE EYE CONTACT

*****how do you behave before and after a performance??? How does that make your audience feel? ACCEPT COMPLIMENTS

3. Open Minded

every event and situation is a opportunity. Ideas/potential mew projects are constantly being generated potential new projects. look at everything around them and focus it toward their goals.

4. Self Starter ***

Entrepreneurs know that if something needs to be done, they should start it themselves. proactive, not waiting for someone to give them permission. JUST DO IT. Don’t always ask if it’s okay, break some rules, be daring

5. Competitive

Be a little proud of your work!

6. Creativity, curiosity 

make connections between seemingly unrelated events or situations (programming, projects, connecting people and artists and non-artists)

7. Determination

8. Strong people skills

strong communication skills. People are NOT SCARY. Everyone has been through a student and young professional stage. We’re all finding our way. 

9. Passion

genuinely love their work. (I’m a bit of a nerd, I love practicing, working my butt off, I love research and writing grants and staying up late, and then celebrating afterwards, keeps me going)

Skills

2. Time management. Careful priority planning, project management

**developing good habits! eg. Responding to emails right away 

3. Strategic thinking. creative solutions, problem solving

4. Efficiency.

5. Resilience. Handling rejections, stress, burnouts, lack of focus, slow progress. Determination and eagerness

6. Communication

7. Networking ** in person and online 

**TIP. FIND MENTORS (reach out to people you admire, don’t be shy, ask for help and advice and guidance)

8. Finance Budgeting, but don’t let money dictate you dreams, there should always be a way to find funding for your project 

9. Branding. ** Building a memorable style and unique, distinctive artistic voice/specialty/personality

10. Sales How do you sell tickets?

• Pursue a variety of work and opportunities: you can do this while still being a student!! (soloist, chamber musician, executive director, producer, researcher, teacher)

My social, entrepreneurial, and leadership commitments are balanced with and support my academic success. As a modern day artist, we need to constantly apply training to tangible opportunities in the professional world and build network, experiences, and skills while pursuing my studies. Perform actively as a solo and chamber musician, collaborating with colleagues on a variety of creative, interdisciplinary arts projects, building an advanced-level private teaching studio, and researching new musicology topics. 

• Solo: participating in competitions and building connections with conductors, colleagues, venues, and patrons across North America to create my own solo performance opportunities

  • Chamber: (previously Z4, Kuma performed across Montreal in venues such as Salle Bourgie, Victoria Hall, Christ Church Cathedral, as well as in residencies at the Beijing Central Conservatory and the Lunenburg Academy of Music), now Montreal Musicians Collective with our concert series, professional trio concerts (LAMP story, from students to paid artists); continue to tour as a Lincoln Center Stage artist onboard Holland America Line cruises, performing educational piano quintet programs from a diverse range of genres

• Producer and creative projects: As Executive Director of the newly incorporated business and arts initiative, Zenkora Studios, I am leading a large team of artists across the US and Canada to produce creative, multimedia orchestra concerts that incorporate dance, theatre, and various other art mediums.

• Academics: (lots of funding!!! don’t have to be in musicology, performance students also can research!) Canada Graduate Scholarship: a project that investigates “cuteness” as an aesthetic quality that has pervaded contemporary Western society, and studies its cultural significance through musical analysis. I will use Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi’s animation film score written for Studio Ghibli’s simple and endearing films such as Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro to better understand the “cute” as a new musical topic. What are the affects and attitudes associated with “cuteness”, and how can they help us understand our social environment? What is the broader cultural and artistic significance of the “cute”?

• One of the best ways to learn: produce your own concert!!! (Zenkora experience) - entire journey

• *** TIP: APPLY TO THINGS, DEADLINES WILL MOTIVATE YOU, stimulate creativity, force you to take ACTION

My experience in creating and building the arts organization Zenkora Studios has been instrumental to my development as a leader and organizer. Zenkora is an original fantasy universe that serves as a platform for artists of all mediums to express their creative voices. In 2016, our team received a grant from the Entrepreneurial Musicianship department of the New England Conservatory to launch our first public presentation of Zenkora. We produced the multimedia concert, “Zenkora: A Brief History”, which debuted original orchestra music, dance, drama, art, animation, and poetry. In 2017, we launched a larger scale production in Calgary, “Zenkora: The Seven Eras”, which commissioned new works of music, dance, drama, and brought together a team of over 80 talented emerging artists. I was responsible for producing the project starting from its initial conception and planning through to contracting artists, budgeting and fundraising, marketing, and the final production and post-production.

• Finding your niche, what defines what you have to offer? Your specialization? Your voice/personality? What do you want to be known for in 5 years?

• Resources

  • *actually try out/write out this exercise! Life Goals: list all of the things you’d like to accomplish in the next couple of years in three categories: personal, artistic, and professional

Slide 3 Overview 

• Explore self-promotion and reaching/connecting your audience

• Different types of social media suits different people/mediums, depends on what you’re familiar using

• Different platforms have different functions (public/private, formal/personal)

Slide 4 Website

• Squarespace

• Showcase biography, personal statement

  • Importance of writing an artistic statement (rather than just listing your accomplishments)

• Work samples (videos, audio)

  • Soundcloud, YouTube, solo chamber

• Projects (Zenkora, Studio Ghibli)

• Updates and news

• ***personalization: blog and more informal daily life subjects to make me relatable as a person (my sentimental thoughts, travel blog and food pictures, people like following your adventures)

• Jonas (example of website that shows personality and relatable artistic statement)

Slide 5 Facebook 

• Who has a Facebook page? Good to start building one early on

• Promoting events, biographies, program notes, personal feelings and stories relating to the music, throwbacks, silly practice moments

• **depends on how you want to create your public image!

• Mine I want to be very open, sincere and relatable (post often are more sentimental and personal)

• *** BE VULNERABLE

• ***example Chopin, I like to pair my music with sentimental thoughts

https://m.facebook.com/pg/twangpiano/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0#!/story.php?story_fbid=2791936280851377&id=2282417635136580

• Videos posts are important (more reach than YouTube), people are attracted to visuals (posts with photos and videos)

• ***live stream!!! Reach more audiences, saved as a video later

• Events page (engage more audience than website) adding people’s events to your page

• Targeted promotions and ads (can view insights and results, post reach)

• Eg. Personal, Montreal Musicians, Kuma/Z4

• *** TIP: respond and comment on friends posts to stay engaged and in people’s heads

Slide 6 Instagram 

• Most personal (daily life) - snapshots of your personality, more fun and informal

  • Personal yet reach a broader audience (Facebook more within friends group, with hashtags instagram reaches more international audience)

• Business account (insights to post engagements)

• Using hashtags, connecting with other artists, musicians, reaching audiences who are interested in your subjects

• Eg. Alexey

  • Very active social media pianist! Varies posts between professional and ‘fun’ adventures, found many opportunities and patrons and house concerts, offers because of being discovered on Instagram

• Creating regular ‘themed’ content

  • Short 1 minute practice videos

  • One art style: eg. Connie (also pianist)

• Eg. Personal Instagram

  • Variation between videos, promote events, recap events, daily updates, food posts, silly videos, cat post... practice breaks

Slide 7/8 conclusion 

• Build your own story, have fun with social media while engaging with the audience in a way that feels real, interactive, and personal (need to play the social networking game!)

• Be brave about marketing yourself, presenting a public image, voice, identity

• Scary and intimidating and some people feel like they’re ‘selling’ themselves, but it can be done sincerely, put yourself out there; ASK for things you want, initiate interactions and relationships

• The more you expand your network the more opportunities will come your way! Never know where each connection can lead to!