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

Help us keep the show running

1. Support this podcast, and the entire brand of The Happy Choir by becoming a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/composercordero
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Produced by Carlos Cordero.

Thank you for listening!

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Hugs,
C.