Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to LeeAnne Chenoweth. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

LeeAnne, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I’m thankful to my parents for giving me violin and piano lessons starting at the age of 5. If musical training isn’t started early, it just isn’t a career option. Of course at that age, it’s all for fun and enrichment, but I’m grateful! Music is the greatest passion of my life, after God and family of course! It is a lot of work, though, and a lot of emotional ups and downs as is anything so competitive. By age 10, I dropped piano to focus solely on violin, as it became too much to try to practice each instrument enough time. By high school, I was practicing violin several hours per day, what is needed to gain entrance into a good university as a music major. There were also summer music camps in New York (Meadowmount School) and summer studying with professional symphony violinists. Practicing came for me, before academic homework. I knew I wanted a job in a professional symphony. I studied at University of Houston with artist in residence violinist Fredell Lack the summer after my senior year of high school…going when I was still only 17. then I transferred to SMU where I graduated with a degree in violin performance, having been a recipient of the Artistic Achievement Award scholarship. This is dull stuff! My bio is on my website: www.timelessconcerts.com. The pain and frustration came, as for every musician, when the years of auditions began right after college graduation. Many musicians go into serious debt flying to whatever city has an a symphony with an opening for their instrument…when it happens, you must go! There is not a full time symphony in every city, and musicians don’t leave the job…there may be 5 years to wait for another opening in your instrument in a particular orchestra! I am blessed that I worked in Ft. Worth Symphony for 17 years, starting in my twenties. My job began as a part time contract, then I was given a full time contract. The full time symphonies rehearse daytime, generally having Mondays off, and have concerts Fri/Sat nights with a Sunday matinee. This pattern is at least 40 weeks per year. It can be difficult for family life, always leaving right after dinner on Fridays and Saturdays for concerts. I always thought the job would be perfect without the Sunday matinees…I never liked having to do those. Some musicians earn a living working as subs in various orchestras. Then, there are many part time orchestra jobs, called “regional” symphonies. The only full time symphony jobs in Texas are the Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston Symphonies. Sadly, the San Antonio Symphony was the 4th pro orchestra in Texas, but went out of business after financial difficulties. There are many part time symphony jobs (Richardson, Plano, Waco, Abilene, etc) and I know of musicians who are constantly on the road playing in multiple orchestras. Dallas Opera Orchestra is a good paying job, but only has a 20 week season. My first professional orchestra job was in the violin section of Dallas Opera. Many musicians not in one full time symphony job piece together a good living by adding teaching, subbing in other various orchestras, and special event freelance performance work to their schedules. This can be stressful, as one would rearrange their teaching schedule to sub in Dallas Symphony and then have to make up rescheduled teaching later! After 17 years in Ft W Symphony, my husband and I decided that it would be a great idea for me to start producing my own concerts! Timeless Concerts was born, and yeah, I’m in charge of my own schedule and select the music and performers myself! Of course, Timeless Concerts only performs 10 dates per year, so I also contract musicians for special event work, and I work in Waco Symphony as a regular sub, plus provide music at area churches. I teach violin students only 2 days per week for a few hours. I must leave time in my schedule for my DAILY practice, as you never ever can go without practice, much like an athlete can never get out of shape if they want to work! The only part of my work I do not love, is having to constantly spend time on fundraising and doing marketing. As with any arts organization, tickets only cover half of the budget, in order to keep tickets affordable. Grant providers want to see that you do earn half of your budget with ticket sales. Timeless Concerts is a 501c3 nonprofit organization.

LeeAnne, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am very much a southerner. I probably, no… I DID hold myself back by not going for auditions in northern cities. Now that I am older than 20, (ha!) I do wonder what would have happened if I wasn’t determined to stay in the south. I just didn’t fit in when I went to summer music camp in New York, and I didn’t like the feeling. So, I only took auditions in Texas and Oklahoma (Tulsa Symphony) where I grew up. I was only a teen and I was probably nuts to not try to study at Juilliard or Curtis, but I just didn’t care enough about it. My husband and I married young, and he graduated from Texas Tech with an engineering degree while I was still in SMU music school. I asked him to look for a job in either Houston or DFW, since I liked my violin professors in both areas! I’m glad we ended up here. I did make it to semi-finals at a Houston Symphony audition, and he certainly would have moved there for me, but I’m glad I ended up here.

The question I’m about to answer here is funny to me; I was asked what type of product/creative works I provide and what things I want potential clients/followers to know. I am very proud of the performers I work with on our Timeless Concerts performance series. We are all very close, too, very important for performers to like each other to work well together. To understand what we do and sound like, you would have to listen to our videos. There are many on our Timeless Concerts Facebook page video library, and a few on our website for those not on Facebook. There is also a promo video on the home page to explain our work. When I started Timeless, I knew that the great composers I loved from my symphony years not only composed symphonic music, but also small ensemble music, or chamber music. I chose the ensemble of piano, violin and cello, as I knew that Ravel, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Brahms and many more greats, composed music for this ensemble, called a piano trio. We sometimes add a fourth string instrument. I also love beautiful songs and arias from opera, so I have a fabulous soprano and tenor we accompany. We are an acoustic ensemble, so our venues must be carefully selected for good acoustics, and do not seat more than 200. Our concert themes tend to be about a place, such as Evening in Italy, or Music of the Spanish Language. For example, Evening in Italy will include instrumental music of Vivaldi, and opera arias of Puccini and some Neapolitan Italian songs that everyone would recognize, plus include Italian American, Henry Mancini! Our audience loves the variety, and that they may hear music that spans 300 years, from Vivaldi to today’s living composers, all on the same evening! Music of the Spanish Language is also a great theme. We will bring this theme back each September. This past September, we included the beautiful piano trio music of Spanish composer Enrique Granados (he was invited to perform his music at the White House in the 1916), and our tenor Sergio Cepeda not only sang classic songs of old Mexico, but ended the concert with a famous mariachi song. Our core members are Dr. Heejung Kang, piano faculty member of UNT, violinist Dr. Tim Angel, cellist Oliver Schlaffer, soprano Youna Hartgraves and tenor Sergio Cepeda, all performers with impressive credentials. Our audience loves the atmosphere of our concerts, also, as we have a post-concert party with a pianist who takes requests. This is a great time to have conversations with our audience, get to know them, take photos, and have a great time together! We keep the concert time at one hour, rather than two or more as in the concert halls. This makes it perfect for those just getting to know classical music. It really is more of a music party! I see the same faces over and over and love it that they look forward to spending an evening with us!
A FUNNY story: We had a video and story cause me be to be banned from Facebook for a month!! I would have just died if it was right before a concert, but thankfully it was 2 months out, not just 1 !! What happened was that I was accused of inciting violence! Yep, I was simply telling the story of the aria that Youna had sung from Tosca, when the heroine stabs the villain! The word STAB was the issue! I told my followers about it in a different post and it actually got us more attention and a lot of laughs! There is a photo attached of me laughing as Youna dramatically makes stabbing motions while she tells the story to the audience before she sang!

Part of our mission is to encourage students to remain in music throughout their school years, We know from various studies that music education helps brain development in children. You can easily look up the effects of studying a musical instrument on the brain. ALso, being in orchestra, band or choir gives kids a group where they feel they belong. I visit schools (usually 5th and 6th graders) and talk about careers in music (more than performing, such as music therapy or composition) and let them ask me questions. I also play for them, and offer free tickets for youth ages 10-17. ALL youth in this age group, no matter where they live in north Texas, are allowed to attend Timeless Concerts free, but we must be contacted by the ticketed accompanying adult to reserve their seat. A big part of our mission is to keep great music of the ages from dying….it must be performed and heard, or it is lost forever. I have heard young audience members remark that they have never heard a singer sing without a microphone! For music students, hearing their instrument performed well, and hearing more interesting, virtuosic music, can be inspiring. Ultimately, we hope to inspire youth to be the future audience and supporters of the performing arts. I am constantly planning exciting concert music for dates many months out.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

We performing artists need YOU! We cannot survive without ticket sales and an audience! When asked what society can do to best support us, I would say to come hear us! I know the live music we present is enjoyed by our audience, because I see them over and over. However, the best way to build our audience is for our current audience to invite people to come, or even buy tickets for them to use. For instance we’ve had patrons buy tickets as gifts for Christmas presents. People are VERY busy these days, especially those with children. I have found that sports are most difficult to compete with. I was very touched when a couple of Timeless Concerts fans had been at their son’s tennis tournament all day, starting 7 am, barely had time to shower before Timeless and still wanted to come! Our fans do seem to be loyal and I appreciate them all so much! Our Facebook page has nearly 800 followers. It is difficult to understand Timeless Concerts without attending, but I know those who love us love the way they FEEL on those evenings. We really connect with the audience, talking about the composers, vocalists talk about the meaning of the song they are about to sing, and we’re pretty up close to the audience. It takes a LOT of faith to keep this going! I have been discouraged at times. For example, we may have a sell out audience at one concert, and then sales will be lower for the next date, as I can’t anticipate when there will be many conflicts on that date. It can be devasting financially, as each concert costs about $8k to produce, with performers’ fees for rehearsals as well as concert, the venue rental, cost of piano transportation, etc. Months of planning go into these dates, even hiring a music arranger to take the opera orchestral accompaniment scores to make them work for our ensemble. I do know that once someone comes, they are hooked. That is why our board members are allowed to give 2 free tickets to 2 people who have never before attended; it’s a great investment! Free samples anyone? LOL! After our Nov. 4 concert, a woman approached me and told me she was invited on free board comps last year by our board member Alicia Webb. She then told me that after that, she bought a ticket for every date then on! Seeing our audience smiling and feeling happy, is such a joy! The beautiful arts are GOOD for society, for community.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.timelessconcerts.com
• Instagram: LeeAnne Chenoweth Lawson
• Facebook: Timeless Concerts
• Linkedin: LeeAnne Chenoweth

Image Credits
Except for the green room photo taken by Dan Pope, all other photos were taken by Timeless Concerts board member Sharon Holmes. Our videographer is Daniel Dugan.