Bill Steuber
Nashville Symphony Assistant Principal Second Violin Zeneba Bowers and Assistant Principal Viola Shu-Zheng Yang
Symphony, for example, includes learning about development, marketing, and public speaking as part of its Youth Orchestra curriculum. In fact, it’s hard now to find a university-level music school that doesn’t acknowledge entrepreneurship in its offerings. To some extent, this has arisen from a realistic assessment of the job market: without entrepreneurial skills, many gifted musicians will have trouble sustaining careers in their chosen field. Only a small percentage of conservatory graduates will land orchestral jobs and the attendant americanorchestras.org
work, a salary, and benefits—nonetheless get the entrepreneurial itch. The reasons are seldom economic: for most, outside endeavors represent at best a small supplement to their income. The real, more compelling motivation is that their outside activities can enhance their artistic lives. “I think it’s so important not to do only one thing,” says Jeffrey Khaner, who maintains a solo career and a teaching schedule on top of his job as principal flute with the Philadelphia Orchestra. “To be a solo flute player all the time would be unsatisfying, because few of the great composers wrote for solo flute. If I want to play Beethoven or Brahms or Bruckner or Stravinsky, the only option is to do it in the orchestra.” Orchestral musicians who start chamber ALIAS, a Nashville-based new-music ensembles are often looking to reconnect ensemble founded by Zeneba Bowers, assistant principal second violin with the with a genre of music that loomed large Nashville Symphony in their student days. “Chamber music is in their blood, so they look for every opportunity to do it,” says James Undercofler, artistic director of the University of security—a key consideration that educaMaryland’s National Orchestral Institute tors cite when explaining their emphasis and former president and on entrepreneurial studies. CEO of the Philadelphia “If you become the prinConservatories Orchestra. “It’s a chance to cipal whatever of the New across the country be heard.” York Philharmonic, you’re have been bringing For most musicians, an at the pinnacle of your proentrepreneurial orchestra job provides not fession,” says Joseph Polisi, just career stability but spiripresident of Juilliard. “Well, teaching into their tual rewards. It allows them what happens if that doesn’t curriclums. to use their extraordinary work out?” skills and training to engage But the surprising thing in one of the most demanding—and reis how many musicians with orchestral warding—collaborative endeavors around. berths and all that that entails—steady
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