Ever wondered what exactly a conductor does? Well they don’t call him/her maestro for nothing. A conductor must get 100 people to move in unison often with few to no words. They are the face of the orchestra with patrons, must prepare a vision for each performance, relay their vision to the orchestra in a clear manner, and run rehearsals within strict time frames. Over this four week workshop you will get a sneak peak at how a conductor does this and even go through many of the motions yourself. The parallels and metaphors for general leadership skills are numerous and this is a fun way to explore how leaders in music communicate non verbally.

Leadership concepts include: leading through inspiration rather than fear, giving instructions that allow for adequate reaction time, time management tips, the costs of micromanaging, and a touch of basic emotional intelligence skills that will help create the culture you want for your organization.

The participants will choose their favorite music excerpts to work with from a set of classical music options we provide. Once inspired by their music choice, the group will learn how dancing is very similar to conducting. The way we dance to music is a natural response to the meter, tone, and emotional content. After gaining self-awareness of our movements, we can reverse engineer them to set the mood and tone of the ensemble. Setting the tone of the ensemble is just a matter of evoking the mood you want to hear through your body movements and presence. We will also explore meters and beat patterns for communicating technical instructions through the right hand and how to separate that from communicating the emotional expression through the left hand. This workshop will provide participants with a unique aerobic and cerebral experience that will charge them up and inspire them to think creatively about leading.

Participants: 10 Style: Classical Artists: 1 Conductor Time: 4 weeks/ 1 hr. per week