Entrepreneurs in Music — and Don’t Forget about Mozart!

Yvonne Caruthers and I are co-moderating this discussion about musicians as entrepreneurs, and we want to let you know the sort of entrepreneurial things we do, when we’re not playing our instruments in our respective orchestras.

Editor in Chief Ray Ricker has written an excellent overview of the topic, so we’ll let him introduce the concept of entrepreneurship (below). But first a brief explanation of the title of this VDP: Someone was interviewing Ray about entrepreneurship and she asked him whom he considered to be the first musician entrepreneur. According to Ray, he “pulled a rabbit out of his hat” and replied, “Mozart” — because he was the first major composer who didn’t work for a court or a church. Maybe this was because Mozart was too wacky to get a court gig, but he certainly was entrepreneurial.

Yvonne’s entrepreneurial experience: Yvonne sat through one too many symphonic children’s concerts that she thought could be better done so she’s been involved for the last fifteen years in doing just that. Her Connections series (relating music to a classroom subject such as history or math) has been very popular at the Kennedy Center, and in states where the National Symphony has visited during residencies. She also teaches classes on music-related subjects for the Smithsonian Associates, the educational arm of the Smithsonian museums.

Ann majored in music in college but suffered a viral paralysis of her left wrist, so thought she’d never be able to play professionally. After grad school in Int’l. Relations at Yale, a colleague introduced her to Sam Kissel, a Dounis method teacher, so she went in search of a job to support taking lessons and relearning how to play. She ended up at the Artificial Intelligence lab at Yale and helped form an AI startup, Cognitive Systems. Later she started her own business as a technical writer for software companies. Meanwhile, Dounis method had worked and she joined the Hartford Symphony in 1980, but she still works as a tech writer. Working with Polyphonic as Senior Editor is a joy, and she recently started writing grants for the HSO, so finally her technical writing is now focusing on music as well as software. She and her husband Algis Kaupas are also designing websites for musicians and artists: check out panelist Kate O’Brien’s Moxie website!