Hello again! What a busy two weeks it has been! Last week was a shortened academic week because of midterm reading period, which is a lovely four day break from classes and most activities in the middle of the term (Thursday through Sunday). On Wednesday and Thursday of reading period, I went on an arts and entertainment career trip to the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) with a group of fellow Lawrentians! The purpose of the trip was to give us an opportunity to connect with Lawrence alumni in the Twin Cities who are pursuing careers in the arts and entertainment field, and to get an inside look into various types of arts careers (arts management, arts education, being a self-employed/freelance artist, and merging all three into one career). We met so many incredible Lawrence alumni and other arts professionals over the two days, but I particularly enjoyed meeting Bonnie Morris (Class of ’72), Mary Louise Knutson (Class of ’88), and Elizabeth Sorensen (Class of ’85).
Bonnie is the producing director of Illusion Theater in Minneapolis, which is a theater organization that puts on productions that are designed to inspire social change. In one of the panel discussions we participated in, Bonnie talked about her very active life as a student at Lawrence, and how she used so many of the intellectual and social skills she gained at Lawrence to design her career, which, in addition to running Illusion Theater, includes teaching, acting, public speaking, and social activism. Mary Louise Knutson is a jazz pianist who, like most jazz musicians, started out as a classical musician, but discovered her love of jazz here at Lawrence. She moved to the Twin Cities right after college, and worked really hard at honing her jazz skills, while also developing her personal brand by making business connections with other musicians, which led to touring opportunities, teaching, and critical success as a jazz pianist. Elizabeth Sorensen is the vice president of Make Music, which produces an instrumental accompaniment software program called Smart Music (a program that a lot of us use in the conservatory here at Lawrence!). Aside from her main career in the music software business, she is a freelance musician who plays violin with lots of classical music groups in the Twin Cities. It was really inspiring to hear about how she has built her music business career while still maintaining her unwavering love for the violin, and it was reassuring for me to know that there are people like her who have pursued other career paths after Lawrence but have still been able to keep up with performing music.
(The Minneapolis skyline)
The other fantastic part of the trip was getting to tour a handful of prominent arts organizations and getting a glimpse of the behind-the scenes operations and management of these organizations. This was particularly exciting for me because I am interested arts management as a potential career path, so it was really interesting to learn how these organizations function at the administrative level. We toured the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, which is a performing arts center for music, theatre, and dance productions, the Baroque Room in St. Paul, which is a performance space for early classical music groups, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which is the city’s main museum for contemporary art. We were shown around by Lawrence alumni who work at each of these organizations, so it was great for all of us to have that personal connection to each other. It was so great to hear from all of the alumni how much Lawrence really prepared them for their careers in the arts—in some cases, they began rigorous training in their art at Lawrence, but their Lawrence educations taught them how to think critically, expand their horizons, juggle a large number of responsibilities, and make smart and informed life decisions. So in short…it was a great trip!
Here are a few pictures from the Walker Art Center, which was our last stop on the trip:
The museum has an outdoor sculpture gallery with a beautiful view of the Minneapolis skyline…and one of the sculptures is a spoon with a cherry! An amusing and lovely sight!
The outside of the Walker Art Center
Here is part of one of the exhibitions
That’s all for now! Next time, I will have tales and pictures from clarinet weekend at Bjorklunden (Lawrence’s retreat center in Door County, Wisconsin)!