HCP 28: Brandon Elliott on the journey of an artistic director
Brandon Elliott, Founder and Artistic Director of Choral Arts Initiative, shares with us his journey to create and maintain a healthy organization that keeps growing and growing. Listen to his story, from day one (and the challenges he encountered) to today, and how he is planning to keep his organization a driving force of new music.
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In this episode, you will learn:
- Brandon’s first encounter with choral music (funny and unexpected!)
- How the choir helped him through his studies
- The importance of community in choral music and how Coronavirus has brought it to the foreground
- His weekly meetings with choirs and what they are doing during the meetings
- Preparing a piece by Dale Trumbore composed for virtual singing
- Brandon’s journey through high school, college, to creating his own choir
- How he realized he wanted to create his own choir
- How he connected with Dale Warland during grad school and how he gave him one of the best advice
- The doubts during the process of creating the choir
- The challenges of managing all by himself and how things have changed
- His philosophy about the organization not being all about the artistic director
- The transition of hiring an assistant conductor and the choir reaction
- The most exciting thing he gets to do as an artistic director of Choral Arts Initiative
- Their process to put together a newly commissioned piece
- Brandon’s plans to sketch the next 10 years of Choral Arts Initiative
- What Brandon would like Choral Artists around the world to do
Share it with me
- What’s your story with choral music?
Links mentioned in the show:
- Choral Arts Initiative
- Dale Trumbore Virtual Piece
- Premier Project
- Emergency fund Choral Arts Initiative
- Listen to Choral Arts Initiative
- Follow Choral Arts Initiative
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Produced by Carlos Cordero.
Thank you for listening!
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Hugs,
C.