Welcome to readers of Symphony Magazine

Erich Kunzel told me many times that conducting was 5% of his job. The other 95% occured offstage. While the audience sees only the tip of the iceberg, a good conductor knows every inch of it. I have spent many years learning the contours of the entire iceberg and I would love to navigate them with you.

I met Erich in 1983, when the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra needed a guitarist to play on a dreadful piece of music, a disco version of Beethoven's 5th symphony, entitled "A Fifth of Beethoven." It was the beginning of a long journey that led me through performing as an orchestral musician, then arranging for orchestra, and eventually conducting.

I learned Pops from the master of Pops. I learned how to put together great shows, how to appeal to audiences, how to write arrangements, how to raise funds, how to reach out to a community. The rest of this website explains my credentials as a orchestral musician. Feel free to browse.

I can help your orchestra connect with your community.  My skills on the guitar enable me to slide into unusual outreach situations. Imagine, for example, that your community is sponsoring a blues festival, or a jazz festival, or a folk festival, or a bluegrass festival . . . and your Pops conductor can play a set at the festival while a booth nearby distributes literature and gathers names and email addresses. The guitar opens many doors.

Or, imagine thanking a large donor to your orchestra by performing an arrangement of their favorite piece of music that I create in their honor. 

Let me help you. I am overflowing with ideas about how to promote an orchestra. Click around on this website for a bit, and then call me and we can talk.

Thank you for reading, and I wish you and your orchestra the best of luck in all your musical ventures.