Dr. Fabiana Claure helps musicians ignite new income opportunities and expand their impact so that they can live a financially empowered, artistically fulfilled, and family-centered life. As a multifaceted concert pianist, educator, entrepreneur, business coach for musicians, and an administrator, she has a diverse musical career and successful business experience. Her international background – having lived in the US, Bolivia, and Cuba – has allowed her to gain an empowering and global perspective towards music and entrepreneurship education. Fabiana coaches musicians all around the world, through her signature framework, the Musician’s Profit Umbrella™. She is also the Founder and Director of the Music Business and Entrepreneurship program at the University of North Texas, where she is spearheading a major initiative designed to equip young musicians with key music business and entrepreneurship skills to support 21st century artistic careers.

When I graduated from the New England Conservatory with a Master’s of Orchestral Performance (and a huge pile of student loans), I had no idea how to actually win an orchestra job. The path to my current position in the Los Angeles Philharmonic was long, expensive, and full of heartbreak.

 The problem is that music education focuses on playing skills. Meanwhile, there’s a huge arsenal of organizational, social, professional, and emotional skills that musicians (and all creatives) NEED in order to navigate a life in the arts.

 I grew up on Long Island and always expected to become a band director. But as an undergrad at the Crane School of Music (SUNY Potsdam), I realized that my true calling was performance.

 Even with my earliest trumpet students, I couldn’t help but notice that they needed more than just trumpet information. Around this time, I started feeling like music teachers were failing students in the areas of:

• Performance anxiety
• Stage presence
• Learning how to practice

 When my own career stalled after graduate school, I realized the issue was bigger than that. I had to learn:

• How to interpret job listings
• The unspoken rules of applying to orchestras
• The dos and don’ts of self-recording
• How to prepare for an orchestra audition (you need a multi-month plan, kind of like training for a marathon)
• How to keep from getting discouraged
• How to still have a life while working towards my big goal

 Many auditions and orchestra jobs later, I founded Honesty Pill to help musicians and other creatives find better ways to reach their life goals. Through my Accelerator group programs and one-on-one coaching, I help people become more effective at practicing, at performing, and at navigating their own paths.

Acclaimed concert artist, transformational speaker, and unexpected 2020 Independent Presidential candidate, Jade Simmons, brings a fresh vision and a new lane of experience to the table, eschewing the traditional path of artists and politicians who have come before her.

Named one of the “Best Keynote Speakers of 2019” (Northstar Meetings) and 2020 (BigSpeak Speaker Bureau), Jade spent the first few years of her career performing as a classical concert pianist. Following an artistic epiphany, she pivoted from playing the piano to impressing audiences, to using the piano as the vehicle by which to provide the inspiration, information, and entertainment that profoundly moves them instead. Her performances have taken her to renowned halls like New York’s Town Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center with the Chicago Sinfonietta, Dallas’ Meyerson Symphony Center with the Dallas Symphony, and has included the hallowed halls of the White House and the US Supreme Court. Jade’s innovative performances have garnered her the nickname “Classical Music’s #1 Maverick” and has won her the honor of being named one of the “Best of South by Southwest 2014”.

No stranger to pushing boundaries to see bold results, this concert pianist turned world changer is brought in by the likes of corporations like Mass Mutual, Royal Bank of Canada, DOW, Raytheon, the Hershey Company, Genentech, Valic, Pfizer, and Nationwide to redefine purpose, inspire seismic shifts in mindset, and activate audiences to go out and instantly start living more consequential lives of impact.

New York Times described Meg Okura’s music as “grandiloquent beauty that transitions easily from grooves to big cascades to buoyant swing.” Jazz composer and violinist, Meg Okura, is the recipient of the 2018 Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.  Since the founding of the Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble in 2006, Okura has used composition as a tool to negotiate her conflicting identities: a violinist in jazz, a Japanese immigrant Jew by choice, and a mother of a black Jew.

Native of Tokyo and formerly a concert violinist, Okura toured all of Asia as the soloist and concertmaster of the Asian Youth Orchestra as a teen. She moved to the U.S. in 1992 and made her solo debut at Kennedy Center with the late Alexander Schneider’s New York String Orchestra. She then earned B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School as a classical violinist, only to make a difficult shift to becoming a jazz musician.

Her Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble has performed nationally and internationally, including Winter Jazz Fest, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, Blue Note New York, KL Jazz Festival (Malaysia), Levitt Pavilion in Los Angeles, and the Kennedy Center.

Her credit as a violinist, erhu player, and composer appear on over 50 recordings and soundtracks, including David Bowie, Lee Konitz, Diane Reeves, and she has toured with Michael Brecker, Steve Swallow, Tom Harrell, Cirque du Soleil, and others.

In 2018, she placed No. 6 Jazz Violinist in the International Critics Polls.

Brenden Lowe started playing classical piano at the age of 5. He then switched to jazz in 7th grade and became extremely frustrated by the lack of organization, direction and systematic education.

He continued his journey and graduated from The New School University in Manhattan, NY, with a jazz piano performance degree.  He has now dedicated himself to delivering easy, clear and structured jazz piano education through his jazz piano education business at Jazzpianoschool.com so that jazz students can avoid the guessing, frustration and constant feeling of being lost while making more progress with ease. He is now coaching other performing artists in business to create stable income streams.

Hi! I’m Tracy Friedlander, horn player, ensemble creator, host of the Crushing Classical podcast and a visibility and audience building coach for musicians. After 20+ years as both a freelancer in a big city and a full-time “extra” musician in an orchestra for 10 seasons, I needed something to change in my career.

Over the course of 4 years, I navigated the online world and became visible through my writing and content creation online. I now help my clients overcome their blocks to becoming visible, own their expertise and authority through their writing and other content, and navigate the world of online networking by using social media strategically to grow their audience and attract their ideal clients online.

Stanichka Dimitrova, whose playing has been described as “wonderfully full in tone and exuberant in performance” by the San Francisco Classical Voice, was a winner of the 2010 Concerto Competition at Stony Brook University, which resulted in a solo performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. She has also been a First Prize winner in the “Barbara Krakauer Scholarship Award” Competition at the Associated Music Teachers League in New York City, “Hopes, Talents, Masters” International Competition in Dobrich, Bulgaria, “Svetoslav Obretenov” National Competition in Provadia, Bulgaria, and was a Top Prize winner of the National Competition for Austrian and German Music in Burgas, Bulgaria. Ms. Dimitrova is a graduate from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Sally Thomas. She recently received her doctoral degree at Stony Brook University, studying with Philip Setzer, Pamela Frank, Soovin Kim and Philippe Graffin.

   In 2017 Stanichka made her Carnegie Hall solo debut in Weill Recital Hall under the auspices of of Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York and St. Cyril and St. Methodious International Foundation. 

​    Stanichka is the founder and artistic director of PhiloSonia chamber music series, designed to create a personal connection between audience members and classical music and was most recently featured in Guernica Magazine. For more information about PhiloSonia visit: www.PhiloSonia.com

     In addition she is currently a Teaching Artist for the New York Philharmonic’s Philharmonic Schools Program, where she participates in a variety of outreach activities and performances in public schools throughout New York.

The award-winning Welsh collaborative pianist and conductor Jocelyn Freeman is lauded for her artistry, programming and powers of communication. She is an advocate for diversity in a range of artistic endeavours, and a skilled communicator on the concert platform, and in broadcast, recording and social media. Founder-director and curator of SongEasel, an initiative established to provide a platform for song in South East London, Jocelyn has curated extensive concert and recording projects to wide critical acclaim.

 Jocelyn’s engagements have taken her to four continents including broadcasts in the UK and Germany; performances in the Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre and the Sage, Gateshead; and awards from Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Academie, International Marlow Concerto Competition and Snape Maltings. Notable collaborations feature Jamal Aliyev, Fleur Barron, the Broomwood Ensemble, Stuart Jackson, Gareth Brynmor John, the Lakewood Sinfonia, Stephan Loges, Joseph Shiner, Elin Manahan Thomas and Julien Van Mellaerts. 

 A prize-winning graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Jocelyn’s repertoire champions standard song and concerto repertoire alongside lesser-known and contemporary composers. Her discography comprises releases with Kissan Records, Ty Cerdd and Orchid Classics.

Jocelyn is grateful for the support of the Carne Trust, Victor Wood, the Oleg Prokofiev Trust, the Nicholas Boas Foundation and Arts Council England.

Business coach Jennifer Rosenfeld collaborates with top musicians to create profitable and impactful online education businesses that enable her clients to win back their time and pursue their dream creative projects. A leading arts entrepreneurship educator and speaker, Rosenfeld has worked with non-profits, university music programs and conservatories, and professional musicians on developing a wide range of educational and artistic projects. She received her JD/MBA from Stanford University.

Nathan Cole, First Associate Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is at the forefront of online music education. He has worked with thousands of violinists of all levels, through his website natesviolin.com.

Nathan has appeared as guest concertmaster with the orchestras of Cincinnati, Houston, Minnesota, Oregon, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, and Seattle. He was previously a member of the Chicago Symphony and Principal Second Violin of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. A native of Lexington, KY, he made his debut with the Louisville Orchestra at the age of ten while studying with Donna Wiehe. After eight years working with Daniel Mason, Nathan enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music. In addition to his studies there with Pamela Frank, Felix Galimir, Ida Kavafian, and Jaime Laredo, Cole formed the Grancino String Quartet, debuting in New York’s Weill Hall. Several summers at Marlboro enriched his love of chamber music.

Nathan is currently on the faculty of the Colburn Conservatory. His articles and photographs have appeared in numerous online publications, and in Strings, Symphony, and Chamber Music magazines.

Celebrating 40 years in music, NEA Jazz Master and three-time GRAMMY® award-winning drummer, producer, and educator, Terri Lyne Carrington started her professional career in Massachusetts at 10 years old when she became the youngest person to receive a union card in Boston. She was featured as a “kid wonder” in many publications and on local and national TV shows. After studying under a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music, Carrington worked as an in-demand musician in New York City, and later moved to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition on late night TV as the house drummer for both the Arsenio Hall Show and Quincy Jones’ VIBE TV show, hosted by Sinbad.