By Alex Johnson
The Community Stage
Ask yourself, “What do a DJ and a classical musician have in common?”
One of us gets to spend two weeks on a cruise ship for work, and the other one is looking forward to three weekends of driving up to Lindsborg to practice 285-year-old music in a church. But through an orchestrated focus group experience, we found that we face the same challenges—converting audiences into communities, and working to build strong foundations as arts entrepreneurs.
I received an email invitation to a roundtable discussion sponsored by Movement Musick to discuss the arts ecosystem in Wichita with fellow musical minds and how they could direct resources to solve challenges in the arts ecosystem.
Some of you are already groaning … “Why is she talking about Wichita?? This is Hutch!” And valid. I live in both worlds and bring my art to both worlds. But stick with me.
One of three focus groups for the series, I was joined by DJ Carbon, Harrison Steele, a singer-songwriter of folk music, and Joel Boettger, an Eastman-educated jazz musician and adjunct professor. We discussed what it means to be a working artist today, how the ecosystem could better support artists, and how artists can better support each other.
We were asked to consider several models of what the future of the arts ecosystem could look like. The other three identified with the “grow where you’re planted” model. As full-time musicians, this idea resonated with them. There is an opportunity to make this dream a reality for musicians, even in South Central Kansas, with the confidence, artistry, and grit to make it work just like any other entrepreneur.
I identified with the community-based, impact-led arts ecosystem concept that values social change and impact over profit. Community building is at the heart of what I value about the work I do with the arts. Though Harrison ended up leaning toward the “grow where you’re planted” camp, he started out in the “impact-led arts” camp because if you don’t invest in your community, how can you expect it to invest in you? After all, people remember how you made them feel, not how accurate your performance was.
Hutchinson can consider many of the same issues we were grappling with in the Wichita arts ecosystem. How can we continue to build momentum in the arts world (which Hutchinson absolutely has going for it) and remain relevant to changing tastes, lifestyles, and a thirst for community? My hope for the arts broadly, and Classical Revolution ICT specifically, is to be a space for community building and conversation where art is the means by which we can connect, but also lead to deeper conversations, levels of understanding, and empathy as our world continues down the path of deeper divisions.
Some of my favorite moments through four years of music events in breweries are the moments where connections were made outside of the music; a 4-year-old taking the solo cellist up on an invitation to dance to a Bach cello suite, a father-daughter waltz to the Rhapsody String Quartet at the first Beethoven & Beer, and the group of a dozen or so tight-knit regulars who have decided to make our monthly brewery events “their thing”—a chance to meet up once a month, support local artists, and expand their horizons a little each month.
But we should also consider how can we make Hutch a hospitable home for arts entrepreneurship? My challenge to you is to find a new-to-you way to engage with the arts in Hutchinson, support an arts entrepreneur, and learn something new about your neighbors this month. Maybe you too will make an unusual connection like I did with a well-mustachioed DJ.
Alex is the founder of Classical Revolution ICT. She can be reached at alex@classicalrevolutionict.com.