Challenges and Opportunities
As a relatively new resident of Tucson who has lived most of my life in much smaller communities, I am finding it uniquely difficult here to get the word out about the wonderful (yes, I can provide references!) music listening courses I teach. I know I do not have a fancy website but we all have our priorities and mine is focusing on curating the music and content I teach. Each course I develop is a result of hundreds of hours of research and focused effort, and that leaves little time for marketing and self-promotion. Obviously, with so much effort put into each course, it would be a shame to only teach it once to a dozen or so people when Greater Tucson has thousands of people with at least a passing interest in classical music. I am teaching the kind of courses I wish I had had when I was in high school and as a younger adult.
I would love to have a sponsoring organization for the courses I teach, but there is no organization in Tucson that offers lifelong learning evening and weekend courses without restrictions on the age of the participants (e.g. ages 50+). I firmly believe that more people would develop a lifelong interest in classical music if they were simply introduced to it by a teacher who is an experienced listener and passionate about the music, which I certainly am. And, as we know, it is the younger folks who are going to be our future listening audience for both live and recorded music, so why exclude them?
If anyone reading this in the Tucson metro area also has an interest in providing in-person classes for all adults, both younger and older, at times when most working folks can attend (i.e. not daytime M-F), please reach out to me as I would love to talk with you about this. I could pretty easily be enticed to pivot away from my current fully-remote part-time job for an out-of-state employer (I am semi-retired) to helping develop more inclusive lifelong learning opportunities here in Tucson in an in-person or hybrid role, paid or unpaid.
This might be a "big city" thing, but I've noticed that all the classical music arts organizations here in Tucson seem to be disinterested in discussing anything (or promoting anything) unless you come to them with a bundle of money, which I don't have. Who is my primary audience for these courses? Classical 90.5 AZPM listeners, and audience members that attend concerts by the Tucson Symphony, Southern Arizona Symphony, Tucson Repertory Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Tucson, Foothills Philharmonic, and Arizona Friends of Chamber Music (to name the most important ones). How to get my courses announced to any of these audiences? Probably not without a sponsoring organization and a bundle of money. So here we are.
