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.

cont|Contests & Awards
fest2|Master classes/Workshops arts|US/Canada Arts Administration Degree Programs schl|Music Schools & Departments camp|Summer Music Camps & Special Programs
I am looking for
Master classes/Workshops
US/Canada Arts Administration Degree Programs
Music Schools & Departments
Summer Music Camps & Special Programs

busi|Services & Products (Commercial) orgs|Services & Professional Music Orgs (non-profit)
I am looking for
Services & Products (Commercial)
Services & Professional Music Orgs (non-profit)

opt1,Scholarships and Grants opt2,Performing Arts Industry Events and Conferences opt3,AskEdna: Career Advice blog
I am looking for
Scholarships and Grants
Performing Arts Industry Events and Conferences
AskEdna: Career Advice blog

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.”

NEXT IN THIS TOPIC

Special Reports

MA Top 30 Professional of the Year: Andrew Ousley

December 3, 2019 | By Clive Paget

Publicist and Presenter
Unison Media / Death of Classical

“Hi, I’m Andrew,” proclaims Andrew Ousley on his website. “I produce concerts (mostly in Crypts), promote classical music, opera and the performing arts, play in a rock band, and eat burgers.”

Quirky and unconventional, Ousley attended Brown University where he studied philosophy and fell in love with classical music. A stint as a marketer at EMI Classics in New York City was followed by a year and a half in Australia working for Naxos and a return to New York as a publicist around the time EMI was acquired by Warner Classics.

“After ten years in the record business, I’d come to realize that the publicity and marketing work I thought was most creative and forward-thinking generally ended up being more beneficial to the artists than actually helping to sell recordings,” he says, explaining why he set up his own PR and marketing company Unison Media in 2015. “I proposed that Warner [hire] me as a consultant so I could work directly with artists but still promote their recordings.”

Clients like Gustavo Dudamel, Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Bell, and Jeremy Denk helped Unison to grow and now Ousley has three fulltime employees and an army of freelancers covering design, video editing, and styling. “We take an integrated, holistic approach to promotion—not just sending out a press release and pitching a few standard media contacts, but incorporating social media from the ground up, creating video/photo content for campaigns, planning bespoke events, and building a strategy that encompasses all of those in the most creative way possible,” he says.

Unison also produces a pair of concert series that have garnered considerable attention in recent years. One is the Crypt Sessions, an award-winning classical music concert series in the Crypt under the Church of the Intercession in Harlem. The other is The Angel’s Share, a program that takes place in the atmospheric Catacombs of The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. World premieres of new works by David Hertzberg, Gregg Kallor, and Daniel Bernard Roumain have been among Ousley’s personal highlights of these series.

Ousley’s curiosity, spirit, passion for spreading the word, and determination to find entry points for new audiences have all contributed to his success. The fact that his events regularly sell out just happens to be a bonus.

RENT A PHOTO

Search Musical America's archive of photos from 1900-1992.

 

»BROWSE & SEARCH ARCHIVE