Strategy
Marketing is the work of understanding the whole system.
I help musicians, ensembles, and arts organizations think about the whole system — positioning, audience, and the exchange of value between an organization and the people it serves — not just messaging and channels. Two decades of doing this for a touring, recording ensemble inform the work.
Marketing, properly understood, is the study of how value is exchanged — which means looking at the whole picture: the people the work is for, the environment it lives in, the experience of encountering it, and the position it holds. Strong messaging and good channels matter, but they follow from that understanding rather than standing in for it.
Founding member, Alarm Will Sound
Director of Marketing since 2007
2026 GRAMMY® Award — Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble
Founding Faculty Director, Lawrence Business & Entrepreneurship Center
Eastman School of Music · Rice University
Marketing that respects the art — and serves the audience
At its best, marketing is not a layer of tactics added once the work is finished. It is the study of how an organization and its audiences exchange value — which means looking at the whole system: the position the work holds, the publics it serves, the environment it operates in, and the experience of encountering it. Most musicians and arts organizations already have a strong artistic vision. The work is reading that whole system clearly enough to help the right people recognize the vision — audiences, funders, presenters, students, donors, collaborators, and communities.
I bring a musician’s understanding of the work, a marketer’s attention to positioning and audience, and an educator’s habit of making complex ideas clear. The goal is never to make your work sound generic or overproduced — it is to help you see the whole system and communicate from there, with more clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Areas of focus
What I help with
Positioning & the value you offer
What do you do, who is it for, and why does it matter now? Mission language, ensemble and project descriptions, donor- and presenter-facing materials, website copy, and the core idea a campaign is built on.
Audiences, publics & stakeholders
The work touches many people at once: audiences, funders, presenters, students, donors, collaborators, press, and communities. I help map who they are and what each one needs, so the message meets them where they actually are.
The environment you work in
Marketing decisions don’t happen in a vacuum. Reading the field, the moment, and what is changing around you — so strategy fits the real conditions rather than an idealized version of them.
Campaigns & seasons
Turning strategy into concrete launches: audience, timeline, channels, message hierarchy, content needs, calls to action, and follow-through — for concerts, recordings, festivals, seasons, commissions, and residencies. Move beyond “we have an event coming up.”
Channels & content
Websites, email, and social media chosen to fit the strategy, not pursued for their own sake. Site structure and copy, newsletter and campaign sequences, and sustainable content systems an organization can actually maintain.
Storytelling for complex work
Composers, performers, and ensembles often work with ideas that are rich, layered, and hard to summarize. I help turn those ideas into stories that audiences, presenters, funders, press, and community partners can hold onto.
Why this background matters
I’m not approaching arts marketing from the outside.
I’m a trombonist and educator with degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Rice University. I’ve spent my career inside the field I help others navigate — on stage, in the rehearsal room, and in the rooms where an organization decides how to present itself.
I’m a founding member of Alarm Will Sound, a contemporary-music ensemble, and have been its Director of Marketing since 2007 — helping shape the ensemble’s brand, audience development, and release campaigns as it grew into a touring and recording group. In 2026 Alarm Will Sound won the GRAMMY® Award for Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance for its recording of Donnacha Dennehy’s Land of Winter (Nonesuch). Two decades of doing this work for a real, working ensemble — not a case study — inform how I think about every other organization.
I teach entrepreneurship, marketing, and career design at Lawrence University, where I’m the founding Faculty Director of the Business & Entrepreneurship Center and designed the Arts Entrepreneurship focus area; I also hold a certificate in marketing strategy from Cornell. I understand the rehearsal room, the grant narrative, the donor email, the presenter packet, the season announcement, the student-recruitment challenge, the composer’s note, and the pressure to make meaningful work legible without reducing its complexity.
Selected work
Alarm Will Sound
Founding member and Director of Marketing since 2007 — branding, audience development, and release campaigns. 2026 GRAMMY® winner, Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance (Land of Winter, Nonesuch).
Lawrence Chamber Music Festival
Director of Marketing — campaign and content support, audience-facing communication.
FlowFrame
Director of Marketing — messaging, outreach, business development, and creative-technology positioning.
How I work
Approach
Whole-system first
Before any copy or campaign, I want to understand the whole picture: the goal, the audience, the environment, and the value you’re offering. Different systems call for different choices.
Clear and practical
Language that is intelligent but not inflated. Arts marketing can drift into abstraction; I help keep it direct and useful to the people you’re trying to reach.
Collaborative
Good marketing should not flatten the voice of the artist or organization. My role is to listen closely, find what is strongest, and help shape the message so it lands.
Built for real capacity
Realistic systems that artists and organizations can actually sustain — not idealized plans that collapse after two weeks.
Engagements
Ways to work together
Strategy audit
A focused review of how your positioning, audiences, and communications fit together — across website, messaging, email, social, and campaigns — followed by practical, prioritized recommendations.
Good for: artists or organizations that sense something isn’t working and need an outside read on the whole system.
Project or launch campaign
Strategy and execution support for a specific concert, season, recording, festival, commission, residency, or organizational announcement.
Good for: moments when the stakes are high and the message needs to be especially clear.
Positioning & website refresh
Help clarifying your positioning, restructuring your site, and rewriting key pages so your digital presence reflects the quality and ambition of your work.
Good for: artists, ensembles, and organizations whose work has evolved faster than their website.
Ongoing strategic support
A recurring relationship for planning, positioning, campaign development, content strategy, and day-to-day marketing decisions.
Good for: organizations that need a strategic partner but aren’t ready to hire a full-time marketing lead.
Who this is for
Chamber ensembles, contemporary-music groups, classical musicians, independent performers, composers and composer-performers, festivals and concert series, performing-arts venues, university music programs and arts initiatives, artist-led nonprofits, and interdisciplinary or socially engaged projects. You don’t need to have everything figured out before reaching out — much of the work is helping artists and organizations sort through complex goals and turn them into a clear plan.
Make the work easier to understand, easier to find, and easier to support.
Strong marketing doesn’t replace strong artistic work — it helps the right people recognize its value. If you’re building something thoughtful and need help communicating it, I’d be glad to talk.