CAREER MENTORING
Are you just starting out your post-school, professional life as a composer? Or are you currently teaching in academia, and you're wondering about switching to a full-time, freelance composing career?
Perhaps you have been in the field for a while, curious about how to bring your career to the next level? Or you took a break from composing for a few years, and you're now returning to the field, unsure of how to get opportunities going?
Wherever you are on your professional path, I am available to meet with you via Zoom to help you explore your fullest potential.
Activities
We can cover a wide range of topics:
- Discussing your short- and long-term goals, and how to achieve these goals
- Analyzing and strengthening your website
- Covering approaches to writing your biography
- Marketing your music to musicians and organizations
- Tackling procrastination and developing good work habits
- Discussing commission contracts and negotiation strategies
- Building residence programs and activities with organizations
- Anything else you wish to discuss
My background
I have served as the mentor composer for the 2022 Cabrillo Conductors/Composers Workshop, 2022 LunART Festival Composers Hub, and for the Toulmin Foundation in 2022-2023. I am an ongoing mentor for Chicago a cappella’s HerVoice Emerging Women Choral Composers Competition (2021-present), in which we place the emphasis on composers who are in the beginning stages of their career, no matter their age. Additionally, I annually give a number of guest lectures at universities on the business aspects of a composing career, as well as strategies to launch a freelance career. Earlier in my professional life, I taught music business classes for composers for six years at the (now defunct) Fresh Inc Festival (2012-2017), as well as composition and orchestration full-time for 16 years at Roosevelt University before launching my freelance career in 2016.