Seminars • Consultations
Chamber Music America offers a wide range of seminars and workshops for chamber music professionals. Whether at the CMA National Conference every January, the monthly First Tuesday seminars, or at conferences taking place around the country, CMA provides a presence on behalf of and for its membership. Activities range from professional development consultations to interactive skill-development workshops for individual artists, ensembles, and presenters.
First Tuesdays, a series of free professional-development seminars in New York City, is presented in collaboration with Midtown Arts Common and St. Peter's Church. Sessions are held October through June, usually on the first Tuesday of the month, and focus on a wide range of practical issues critical to the working ensemble.
Seminar Location:
3:00 - 5:00 P.M.
Saint Peter's Church
619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street
New York, NY
2010-2011 Schedule
October 5
TALKING BUSINESS: A CONVERSATION WITH MARIAH WILKINS AND LUIS BONILLA
Learn how to be proactive in managing your career--whether you choose to do it yourself, are seeking out your first artist manager, or are looking for a change of management. In this session, an artist and manager team up to discuss tips, concerns, misconceptions, and possibilities.
Luis Bonilla is a Grammy Award-winning jazz trombonist, composer, and professor, whom the New York Times has described as an artist who "explodes the usual musical structures of both [Afro-Cuban and Latin Jazz]." His recent discography includes I Talking Now (2009) and Terminal Clarity (2007). The Luis Bonilla Quintet will perform music from its most recent album on October 30th in Greenville, New York, in a concert presented by Planet Arts, Inc., with the support of a CMA Presenting Jazz grant.
Mariah Wilkins is the founder of Mariah Wilkins Artist Management, LLC. She represents such musicians as Ambrose Akinmusire, Luis Bonilla, Miguel Zenón, Fly, Perdomo, and Guillermo Klein. Wilkins also teaches the History of Jazz at the Manhattan School of Music.
November 2
YOU ARE THE ART, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT: MAKING YOUR MUSIC AVAILABLE TO THE WORLD
Join Alex Shapiro in a broad discussion of the business, technical and psychological tools a composer needs in order to create a viable, income-producing career in today's expanding market. Topics will include promoting what you offer, rejecting the notion of competition, creating a compelling Web presence, copyright and publishing basics, and getting others to perform your music.
Alex Shapiro has found that international relationships created through the Internet, paired with local and national community involvement, have led to a happy music career. Published by her own company, Activist Music, Alex's acoustic and electroacoustic works are performed and broadcast internationally, and have been recorded on more than twenty commercially released CDs. A familiar face in the new-music community through her thought-provoking articles, Alex currently serves on the board of directors of the American Music Center and The MacDowell Colony, and is the elected concert-music representative on the ASCAP Board of Review.
December 7
HISTORY IS YOUR OWN HEARTBEAT: ARCHIVING YOUR COLLECTION
With Reuben Jackson, Archivist and Writer
February 1
Leading Your Business
With Adrian Ellis, Executive Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center
March 1
Meet the Music Press
With Nate Chinen and Steve Smith
Join two of New York's leading music journalists for a candid conversation about the art of getting press coverage-what attracts their attention and how to present your information in an effective way.
April 5
Writer's Workshop: Crafting Your Bio
With Elizabeth Dworkin and Susan Thames, Dworkin and Associates
May 3
Mapping Your Professional World
With Dr. Howard Robinson, Clinical Associate Professor, Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University
Professional ensemble musicians--from jazz to classical--face both musical and non-musical challenges. Issues such as group relations, group commitment, goal-planning, responding to external demands, and identity will be discussed. Participants will then be engaged in discussion of how this conceptual "mapping" of professional musical life might be useful and how these challenges-and the weight one gives to them-may change over the course of a career.
Recordings of selected First Tuesdays seminars are offered to CMA members free of charge, through the generosity of the MetLife Foundation.
First Tuesdays is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
