In fall 2009, NEC President Tony Woodcock appointed Rachel L. Roberts as the first director of Entrepreneurial Musicianship at NEC. An exemplar of the entrepreneurial musician, Roberts graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a degree in flute performance and completed the Catherine Filene Shouse Arts Leadership Program at Eastman's Institute for Music Leadership. She is also an alumna of the League of American Orchestras' Fellowship training program in Orchestra Management. Roberts joined NEC after a stint at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. There, she was Allison Vulgamore's right hand and the director of the grand opening events at the ASO's Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park.
The challenge
The world of music contains some of the most creative minds and talents in our culture. Yet to many observers, the place of music in modern society seems peripheral to contemporary needs. Music study and performance today face formidable challenges: the disappearance of music education from our schools, an aging audience, a seeming lack of relevance and connection to current societal needs, and an inability to develop new and more accessible forms of concert presentations. All of this has been exacerbated by the global economic crisis.
New skills
As one of the pre-eminent music schools in the world and the oldest independent music school in the United States, New England Conservatory is leading the initiative to re-imagine, re-invent, and revitalize how we carry out our mission: to educate and nurture exceptionally gifted musicians to perform at the highest levels of accomplishment. However, performance excellence is now the baseline, the starting point. Today musicians must be more than virtuosi; they must additionally be equipped with new, extra-musical skills that include:
- creative and critical thinking
- flexibility
- programming
- presentation skills
- outreach
- audience development
- marketing
- self-reliance
- communication proficiency
Entrepreneurial Musicianship aims to foster a mindset of self-efficacy among the NEC community, producing a new wave of musical leaders equipped with the musical and extra-musical skills integral to succeeding. Those skills will nurture the artistic empowerment that students need to be successful. The emerging next generation of NEC graduates will be empowered to position music as central within our society.
An unprecedented opportunity exists to reinvent how we train and equip young musicians so they may thrive amidst the challenges they will find after graduation. NEC’s Entrepreneurial Musicianship represents a cultural shift, a larger, holistic approach to musical education that integrates the development of essential skills with the artistic empowerment that students need to be successful. Through curricular and non-curricular opportunities, all entrepreneurial musicianship initiatives will be based upon experiential learning methods and customized for students’ individual passions. Created for students, faculty, and alumni, Entrepreneurial Musicianship will benefit everything that takes place at NEC.
2009-08-31 NEC announces appointment of Rachel Roberts as Director of Entrepreneurial Musicianship
photo by Andrew Hurlbut
2010-05-12
JOHANNES BRAHMS