Artist Spotlight -- Andrea Fisher

Powell artist Andrea Fisher is known to many as "Fluterscooter." A Juilliard grad, she started her line of Fluterscooter bags in 2011 with "one silver bag and a dream."  Now Andrea has been sharing her experiences as an entrepreneur with flutists around the globe -- including students at her alma mater and participants in this week's "Flutes by the Sea" masterclass and workshop in Half Moon Bay, California.

Next month, Andrea will have her own booth at the annual NFA (National Flute Association) Convention, where she will be have plenty of Fluterscooter bags and a few special guests...  She tells us that she will be also conducting interviews at her booth for The Flute View, an online magazine for flutists that she created alongside colleagues Barbara Siesel and Viviana Guzman.  On the performance side, she'll have the opportunity to construct the installation for a performance of her own original music on Saturday, August 15th at 5 PM.

For those who have not had the opportunity to meet Andrea and hear her speak about her experiences as an entrepreneur, follow this link to read the her previous Teach Flute blog post on entrepreneurship titled FLUTREPRENEURSHIP.  Andrea also wrote about her experiences producing the live hologram show, "Flute N Float," in The Making of Flute N Float, which you can also read here by following this link.  She is currently working on a live hologram performance in London, but her DVDs from the Tokyo performance are available on her website: fluterscooter.com.

Click here to view Andrea's full artist profile on the Powell website. The 10th Anniversary Powell Sonaré Fluterscooter bag (pictured in the photo at the top of the page) is also available by clicking this link to the VQP Shop on the Powell website.

WAKE UP: Music Student = Future Business Owner

Nicole Camacho -
Photo by Erika Kapin

By Nicole Camacho

As a star-eyed dreamer music student, I heard beautiful, difficult sonatas, and hungry for a challenge, bought the music and threw on the metronome at a ridiculously slow tempo to start a journey that I knew might be a year or two or a lifetime!  I saw my teachers on stage and marveled at their careers for years thinking their days consisted of "practicing" and their evenings "performing!"

In pursuing a career in music, I wouldn't dare have asked my amazing teachers for time from our lesson to talk about "business".  Truth be told, I had no idea I was destined to be a "business owner." I was in serious denial and not at all looking forward to the day I would have to "wake up".  

Inspired by this "WAKE UP" analogy, here are a few ways for you to "wake (yourself) up" to the ideas you will pursue as a "small business owner":

1)   Stalk artists you LOVE in many different genres on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.  Why?  It's called MARKET RESEARCH.  You begin to notice how people "advertise" and notice how they find innovative ways to communicate their dreams and ideas.  Its quite possible you are already stalking these people!  And so now just look at it from the perspective of you one day needing to communicate your own creative ideas.  Watch and learn!

2)  Follow blogs!  Golden advice can be found in these, and they are often free!  Blogs I appreciate:    

Emerge Already! by Concert Pianist Jade Simmons http://jademedia.org/blogs/unleashed/

Seth Godin's Blog http://www.sethgodin.typepad.com/

99u http://99u.com/

3)  Organize a type of "studio class" for a business talk.  Perhaps you and some of your colleagues are ready to teach young students or have a performing group which would like to play events for pay. Set up this class!  Ask your questions about etiquette when working with customers, writing contracts, and how much money you should charge!  Perhaps you can open up the class to others and do a door fee of some sort so you can pay the speaker/ teacher or just split the fee with your colleagues for the session.  It is your choice, but definitely be proactive in creating friendly environments to have such discussions.  Rehearsals and lessons are sometimes too precious to steal time away for business advice.  Business learning is way too important of a topic to constantly do in passing conversation!  

Activities like these will play a big role in preparing you for running your small business in addition to being a vital part of the businesses of your colleagues.  

Wishing you all the best!

Find Nicole online at:
Website:www.NicoleCamacho.com  
Twitter:    @Flutana 
Facebook:  /flutana 
Instagram:  flutana 
Tumblr:     www.flutana.tumblr.com  

Music Unboxed Concert Series:

Twitter:  @MusicUnboxed  

Facebook:  /musicunboxed 

FUTURE OF FLUTE project:

Twitter:  @FutureOfFlute 

Facebook: /futureofflute