Succeeding as a performer in the music industry takes more than technical skills sharpened and finely tuned at traditional music schools like the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It takes entrepreneurship.
In an effort unrivaled by other traditional music schools in America, CU-Boulder聮s College of Music has created the Entrepreneurship Center for Music. The center, founded in 1998 with a $525,000 grant from the Louis and Harold Price Foundation, was created to help students make their way in the ultra-competitive music industry by serving as a bridge between academics and a professional career in music.
"麻豆淫院 tell us that they want hands-on, practical skills to go with their talents," says Catherine Fitterman, director of CU-Boulder聮s Entrepreneurship Center for Music. "Now we are able to satisfy that request."
And in recognition of its effort to encourage music entrepreneurship teaching, the Coleman Foundation has awarded the center a $25,000 grant to create a video and case studies of six successful music entrepreneurs. The video will be available to high school and college music programs across the country to help them launch their own music entrepreneurship programs.
"In the music industry, talent is not enough," said Fitterman. "Musicians need to understand the music marketplace, present themselves professionally, and possess business and technical skills. They also need entrepreneurial role models."
To help budding musicians succeed, the center offers courses in the business of music entrepreneurship, hosts a guest lecture series of entrepreneurs in the arts, creates internships and mentoring opportunities and counsels students individually about career options. All this is done, Fitterman says, with the goal of making the students more competitive and giving them additional career options.
"When I tell other deans and colleagues about the Entrepreneurship Center for Music, they look at me with astonishment," said Daniel Sher, dean of CU-Boulder聮s College of Music. "That聮s how remarkable the center is."
Entrepreneurship skills are important in any field, Sher said, and since musicians are in the arts, they really have to think proactively about how they can control their own destiny.
According to Fitterman, not many performers have the opportunity to do this, and it shows with fewer than 3 percent of graduating students successfully performing at the level they thought they would when they left school.
"Without a central place for music entrepreneurship studies in performance-focused music schools like CU-Boulder, students enter a fiercely competitive working environment with few practical skills for survival," Fitterman said.
"There are nearly 600 accredited colleges and universities in the United States that offer music degrees, and fewer than 1 percent of these schools have curricula or programs that give students the skills they need to succeed as entrepreneurs," she said.
With more than half of music graduates planning to be self-employed performers, the subject of music entrepreneurship is unaccountably absent in college curricula, according to Fitterman.
"It聮s very easy to go to school and not be aware of what is going on in the outside world," Fitterman said. "The heart of our program is the musical education of students. But we also want to help them excel in their careers after they graduate."
Willie Hammond, a CU-Boulder music student studying piano performance, enrolled in "Working Musician," a class offered through the center, to learn the basics of the industry. She learned through the class how important networking is.
"As part of the class, I gave a demo to Catherine (Fitterman) who passed it on to a local company," said Hammond. "From there I ended up getting a chance to talk with Media Ventures in L.A. They heard my demo and I just sent them a resume, which I also polished in class."
For more information about the Entrepreneurship Center for Music visit the Web site at .