Patricia is a retired Manager of Concerts and the former Director of Concerts and Press Information for the Yale School of Music. During her tenure at Yale, Patricia had her hands in practically everything, from coordinating press coverage and fundraising through community events to hiring performing artists and planning the actual programs. In addition to managing the school’s infrastructure, Patricia also directed the school’s chamber music series, a position which would eventually garner widespread acknowledgment, including glowing praise from the New York Times. Enjoy Patricia’s wonderful story and advice to any student considering a professional career in concert management.
Transcript
My name is Patricia Weinam. At the moment I am retired and so for a living, I'm having a good time, but I worked in music and concert production, press information, and fundraising - that was what I did, after I graduated from WestConn. Running a concert office is a complicated position, I was writing press releases and getting contacts with the press which hadn't really been done before I was there. I was very surprised to see how things were being run when I was there. So I was getting the press coverage, I was doing fundraising, doing fundraising mostly with events, some solicitation. And I was hiring artist planning programs, I ran the chamber music series in Yale which the New York Times called the best chamber music series in Connecticut. I... what else did I do? I was also the general manager of the graduate student orchestra, the Yale Philharmonia. Before I got there, the series was all string quartets, and the center of the series was the Tokyo String Quartet, who were faculty in the Yale School of Music and who are a wonderful quartet. And I felt that having just string quartets was a little constricting, so what I used to do was I would have string quartets with a piano. The bass and the core were string quartets but I would have other instruments come with them. It was wonderful doing that and I would first... I would choose the artists and then I would work on the programs. I tried very hard to make sure that before every intermission, there was a contemporary piece because I feel audiences really need to have their ears broadened so that they get used to new music. And I always did that before intermissions so they couldn't go home at intermission. (laughs) You do everything, absolutely everything. I pushed a harpsichord from my office all the way down College Street to the Shubert Theater. I mean I have time to think about some of the odd things that I've done, but it is true, you do everything, you really have to do everything focusing on the outcome. And you do everything that will make the outcome work. That's what's important.
Download transcript