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

I founded Tales & Scales in 1986 with a handful of fellow orchestra musicians (Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra in Indiana – my first flute job out of university) because I was unimpressed with how orchestras and chamber musicians were dealing with programming for young people. Generally the programming at the time did not seem to respect the intelligence of young people and tended to create programming that talked down to children. I found that a little creativity goes a long way; we experimented with blending music, story and theater. and created a style we named “musictelling”. National Public radio heard about us and did a 9-minute interview with me on Morning Edition regarding the process that we used to create our musictales – we collaborated with composers, writers, and theater directors to create and present compelling performances and workshops specifically designed for young people. What started out to be an artistically satisfying process for creating innovative and meaningful programming for children in our home community became interesting to other communities throughout the country!

Since then we have toured our programs throughout schools, performing arts centers and with orchestras throughout the country. (Please see our website for more information about our national touring: www.talesandscales.org). The great thing is that we are based in Evansville, Indiana, and we still give priority to our home community schools, libraries, and community centers regardless of the fact that we have also performed with the Chicago, Boston and St. Paul Chamber orchestra, to name a few.

Regarding my roles: besides being the originator of the concept and gathering together collaborating artists, I went from being the idea person and flute player of our new music ensemble to the artistic producing director for 10 years, and then structured the organization to go beyond me. We have had two fabulous artistic producing directors since my stint. (I am now a life member of the Board.) Tales & Scales is now 21 years old. We are going through a transition of leadership and I am currently serving as interim executive producing director for the organization until we hire a new leader.