PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

Click on the tabs below to advance your career by searching Contests & Awards, Schools, Festivals, Camps, Service Organizations, and our list of Services and Products, Scholarships and Grants and Events and Conferences.

And be sure to browse the excellent career advice offered by legendary Artist Manager Edna Landau in her Ask Edna blog and the entertainment law experts in their Law and Disorder blog.

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Scholarships and Grants

Musical America routinely updates the list of scholarships and grants in an effort to keep current and ensure opportunities for musicians. If you know of a scholarship or grant not mentioned in our lists, please send us a message.
INDUSTRY EVENTS AND CONFERENCES
Trade shows, seminars, events and conferences about the business of the performing arts
May 19-23, 2025 New Orleans, LA Acoustical Society of America 188th Meeting
May 20-23, 2025 Memphis, TN Opera America
May 22-24, 2025 Warsaw, Poland Audio Engineering Society European Convention
May 22-25, 2025 Waterloo, ON Canadian University Music Society Conference
June 4-7 2025 St. Louis, MO Chorus America Conference
June 10-13 2025 Lugano, Switzerland International Society for the Performing Arts
June 10-14 2025 Indianapolis, IN International Double Reed Society Annual Conference
June 11-13 2025 Salt Lake City, UT League of American Orchestras Annual Conference
June 17-20, 2025 Chicago, IL Dance/USA Annual Conference
June 23-29, 2025 Valencia, Spain International Tuba-Euphonium Conference
June 29 - July 1, 2025 Nashville, TN National Association of Music Merchants NET
July 9-13, 2025 Fort Worth, TX ClarinetFest Conference
July 13-16, 2025 Detroit, MI The Hymn Society Annual Conference
July 14-15, 2025 Virtual American String Teachers Association Virtual String Teachers Summit
July 16-19, 2025 Des Moines, IA Piano Technicians Guild Convention
July 20-23, 2025 Pittsburgh, PA League of Historic American Theaters Annual Conference
July 25-27, 2025 Denver, CO National Council of Acoustical Consultants Conference
July 28-31, 2025 New Orleans, LA International Association of Venue Managers Conference
August 7-10, 2025 Atlanta, GA National Flute Association Conference
August 15-17, 2025 Mexico City, Mexico Audio Engineering Society Latin American Conference
August 17-19, 2025 Costa Mesa, CA Association of California Symphony Orchestras Conference
August 24-27, 2025 São Paulo, Brazil InterNoise Conference
September 2-5, 2025 Los Angeles, CA Western Arts Alliance Conference
October 2-4, 2025 Savannah, GA National Association for Campus Activities Conference
October 13-16, 2025 Beaverton, OR Arts Northwest Annual Conference
October 16-18, 2025 Hartford, CT National Association for Campus Activities Conference
October 23-26, 2025 Long Beach, CA Audio Engineering Society Convention
October 23-26, 2025 Atlanta, GA Society for Ethnomusicology Conference
October 30 - November 1, 2025 Spokane, WA College Music Society National Conference
November 6-9, 2025 Minneapolis, MN American Musicological Society Annual Conference
November 6-9, 2025 Minneapolis, MN Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting
November 20-22, 2025 Riverside, CA National Association for Campus Activities Conference
November 21-25, 2025 Orlando, FL National Association of Schools of Music Annual Meeting
December 1-5, 2025 Ottawa, ON Canadian Arts Presenting Association
January 7-10, 2026 Boston, MA National Opera Association Annual Convention
January 9-13, 2026 New York, NY Arts Presenters Conference
January 13-15, 2026 New York, NY International Society for the Performing Arts
January 16-19, 2026 Dallas, TX International Conductors Guild 50th Anniversary Conference
January 20-24, 2026 New York, NY National Association of Music Merchants Show
January 26-29, 2026 Las Vegas, NV International Ticketing Association Annual Conference
February 25-28, 2026 Providence, RI American Choral Directors Association Eastern Conference
February 25-28, 2026 Milwaukee, WI American Choral Directors Association Midwestern Region Conference
February 25-28, 2026 San Francisco, CA Suzuki Association of the Americas Conference
March 2026 Salt Lake City, UT Music Library Association Annual Meeting
March 4-7, 2026 Tacoma, WA American Choral Directors Association Northwestern Region Conference
March 4-7, 2026 Memphis, TN American Choral Directors Association Southern Region Conference
March 4-7, 2026 Albuquerque, NM American Choral Directors Association Southwestern Region Conference
March 4-7, 2026 San Jose, CA American Choral Directors Association Western Region Conference
March 18-21, 2026 Long Beach, CA US Institute for Theatre Technology Annual Conference
March 21-25, 2026 Chicago, IL Music Teachers National Association National Conference
April 9-11, 2026 Milwaukee, WI National Association for Campus Activities Conference
April 18-22, 2026 Las Vegas, NV National Association of Broadcasters Show
May 19-22, 2026 Singapore International Society for the Performing Arts
July 3-7, 2026 San Antonio, TX National Association of Teachers of Singing Conference
July 6-10, 2026 St. Louis, MO American Guild of Organists
August 20-23, 2026 Chicago, IL Chamber Music America
January 12-14, 2027 New York, NY International Society for the Performing Arts
April 2-6, 2027 St. Louis, MO Music Teachers National Association National Conference

Ask Edna
Edna Landau’s blog
Edna LandauEdna Landau—doyenne of the music business, long-time managing director of IMG Artists and director of career development at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles—writes Ask Edna exclusively for MusicalAmerica.com to provide invaluable advice to music students and young professional artists. Read more about Edna’s impact on the performing arts.

Send your questions to Edna Landau at AskEdna@MusicalAmerica.com and she’ll answer through Ask Edna. Click the links below to read Edna’s recent columns on the critical aspects of launching and managing and professional music career.

Arts Administration

Career Etiquette

Communicating with Your Audience

Finding a Manager

For Chamber Music Ensembles

Listening to Your Inner Voice

Managing Your Own Career

Publicity and Promotion

The Orchestral World

When It Comes to Recording

During Edna’s 23 years as managing director of IMG Artists, she personally looked after the career of violinist, Itzhak Perlman and launched the careers of musicians such as pianists Evgeny Kissin and Lang Lang, violinist Hilary Hahn, and conductors Franz Welser-Mõst and Alan Gilbert.

Edna believes young musicians can grow their own careers, with “hard work, blind faith, passion for the cause, incessant networking and a vision that refuse[s] to be tarnished by naysayers.”

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Special Reports

MA Top 30 Professional of the Year: Christine Taylor Conda

December 4, 2018 | By Susan Brodie

Chair, Board of Directors, El Sistema USA
Director, Reach*Teach*Play® Education Programs, Ravinia Festival

Christine Taylor Conda’s leadership as director of the Ravinia Festival’s music education programs has made them models for the profession. Reach*Teach*Play, the Festival’s three-tiered program to engage children with music, now annually serves more than 85,000 people.

Conda began her career with the Boston Music Education Collaborative, a since disbanded partnership of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New England Conservatory, WGBH, and the Boston Public Schools. While in Boston, she also earned a master’s degree in voice with a music-in-education certificate from NEC.

In 2002 she took charge of Ravinia’s Reach*Teach*Play. REACH, which dates from the 1960s, is a year-round program of mini-concerts in schools, instrument “petting zoos,” free Ravinia lawn tickets for families who couldn’t otherwise attend, and invitations to Chicago Symphony concerts. TEACH places artists in primary schools for multi-week teaching programs that annually reach more than 5500 students. At the end of their units, students perform for their friends at Ravinia.

PLAY is based on El Sistema and, like the original Venezuelan model, seeks to effect social change through music for children with the fewest resources and the greatest need. Conda’s 2010 visit to see El Sistema in action at a Chicago school led her to launch, two years later, the first Sistema Ravinia orchestra at the 
Catalyst Circle Rock School located on Chicago’s west side. Conda found corporate funding for the purchase of 50 instruments, devised a curriculum, and hired and trained the teachers.

The success at Circle Rock, as witnessed and praised by Gustavo Dudamel, led to more demand and more funding. By 2015, Conda was able to add four more communities, which use the Festival facilities for practice and concerts.

Under her direction Reach*Teach*Play has become one of El Sistema USA’s mentoring organizations to new and emerging programs. In 2016 Taylor Conda was appointed to El Sistema USA’s board, where her work on membership contributed to a huge program growth. In July she was named board chair. Through Sistema Ravinia, Conda is realizing her lifelong goal of using music education as an agent of equal access and social justice.

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