What’s the most unusual place that you’ve seen a concert hosted within the last few months? We’ve had a lot of concerts in bedrooms. That’s kind of strange. There was one on that boat in San Francisco — on a house boat in San Francisco. That was cool. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it.
What’s your favorite piece that you’ve seen performed recently? Your favorite evening that you’ve attended? I don’t like to pick favorites when it comes to groupmuses, because they’re all so wonderful and different. My favorite piece that I’ve seen performed — that’s a different question. There was a groupmuse on the Upper West Side, and an honors string quartet from Juilliard played a slow movement from a Brahms string quartet. And I love Brahms more than anything in life, but I’ve never been a huge fan of his string quartets, and yet this slow movement was so glorious. That was very, very, very special. Have you learned anything about running a start-up in the last year that you could share with other Fractured Atlas members and readers? I’ll say that fundraising is really one of the most taxing things that you can do, and what I’ve found is not so much that it’s time-consuming — it’s an unimaginable drain on “soul coal.” What I found to be the greatest challenge is managing the sort of emotional storm of that. Having your hopes brought sky high and then dashed. Because, if you let it get to you, it affects your productivity, and it affects your ability to fundraise effectively. Which of course, as everyone knows — the dirty truth is, it’s kind of the most important thing that you do as the leader of an organization. So if you’re undergoing that process, you need to think about how you can maintain a healthy life balance. During those weeks where I was really just gunning after everyone who I could think of, I created this life balance system that was built around, you know, I’d like cold call for an hour, and then I’d read for an hour, and then I’d do emails for an hour, and then I’d listen to music for an hour. I was really mixing up my day such that I could stay energized, and not discouraged. I think it’s really important, if you’re in the bowels of that process, to get creative about how you spend your time. Last year, your advice for future arts entrepreneurs was “Talk the language of society. Don’t assume that people already care about what you fight for… find reasons to make them care.” What are some ways Groupmuse has expanded its audience by making them care? We put on a Rite of Spring dance party at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, and we brought in 200–300 Millenials who were dancing like pagans to a live orchestral performance of the Rite of Spring. And I think that the extent to which people unleashed their inner instincts and their inner drives towards just — abandon and expression — I have been told from a number of people that that forever changed the way that they saw classical music, that night. And so I think that was a big moment of success; it was sort of the most pronounced moment where we were showing people that this music can provide something for your life that you never knew that you needed: these moments of unabashed expression, outside the context of the somewhat, at times, rigid concert hall. Completely divorcing it from that context, and letting people experience it on their own terms I think really has the power to change the way that people interact with an art. And so that was probably the shining moment that stands out above all other moments. You can learn more about Groupmuse and our other 2015 Arts Entrepreneurship Awards winners here. Don’t forget to stay tuned for more Arts Entrepreneurship Awards news in the coming months, and please remember to nominate an arts entrepreneur who inspires you!