Executive Director

Astrid provided coaching to our small team as we were preparing to launch a new consulting company. She inspired our team to dig deeply into our short term and long term goals for our new venture to develop a sound and personal mission statement that has guided our new company from day one. As a lawyer, I am protective of …

Leadership For Arts Entrepreneurs: 4 Key Elements of Your Leadership Style

In my last post, I dissected the lessons of leadership from Itay Talgam’s TED Talk on conducting and leadership and Marin Alsop’s interview at Yale, and highlighted 4 key elements of a leadership style: Be Yourself Find a Mentor Learn from Failure Create a Relationship of Mutual Respect These lessons  provided the backdrop for a call that I recently led with …

Conducting and Leadership: Lessons for Today’s Arts Entrepreneurs

What lessons can today’s arts leaders glean from conducting and leadership? Conducting is a terrific metaphor for leadership since you have a large number of highly-trained and gifted people (the musicians) who must come together to produce a great product (music) which they can only do with skilled leadership Conducting and leadership provided the backdrop for a call that I …

Design Thinking for Music Entrepreneurs: Using Empathy to Connect with Audiences

This semester, I am teaching The Entrepreneurial Musician at the New School, Mannes College of Music, a required entrepreneurship course that helps master of music candidates to explore how to create meaningful and sustainable careers in the arts.  Last week, we learned about design thinking, a 5-step human-centered design process whose aim is to design products and services that fulfill …

Cultivating Optimism for Music Entrepreneurs: 5 Questions to Help You Manage Uncertainty

My coaching groups at Yale are off to a great start this semester!  Students meet with me on a bi-weekly basis to share their successes and challenges in creating successful careers as musicians and artists.  Through honest, trusting and confidential sharing, they open up about their vulnerabilities and we explore how to manage the many challenges associated with a music …

Top Tips for Managing Your Portfolio Career: Embrace the 4 P’s of the Entrepreneurial Mindset

I have been collaborating with iCadenza, a fantastic resource that helps musicians think like business people and grow as artists. I am honored to have been included in iCadenza’s most recent blog post on “How to Manage a Portfolio Career: 7 Arts Entrepreneurs Share Their Tips.” My advice to successfully manage your music portfolio career? Start with adopting the mindset …

Ideas into Action: How Music Entrepreneurs Create and Innovate

One of my favorite aspects of teaching my Innovation and Collaboration class at Yale is the project whereby the students take on a critical problem in the classical music field and work in collaborative groups to create and implement new solutions to these problems.  It was fascinating to see how we were able to take the spark of an idea …

Using Creativity in Your Career: 5 Steps to Recharge Your Career Satisfaction

Welcome to the new year!  How is your career going? That’s a big question and one that I love to help people sort out since a lot of your time is devoted to your career and life is a lot more satisfying when you feel good about what you do.  What helps is to apply creativity in your career. Let’s …

New Digital Media: Opportunities and Pitfalls of the New Digital World: Part II

Last time, we discussed Sean Hickey’s advice to students at the Yale School of Music on how today’s musicians can leverage new digital media and  work with a label to promote your recording.   Now, let’s hear Sean’s insights on how today’s artists can proactively shape their careers, generate new revenue streams and gain greater exposure using the new tools of …