We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cathy Havicon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cathy below.

Cathy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I am an alum of GDYO, and as a child I used to see the staff hanging around during rehearsals. I never really knew what any of them did, except for the conductor. That was completely evident to me! Years later when I was in college, I had an assignment to interview someone in the music industry. I thought this was my great chance to find out what all those people did! So, I scheduled an interview with the then Executive Director who very selflessly spent hours walking me through her job. She sparked an interest in non-profit management that still lives with me today. Life has come full circle, as I’m now that Executive Director walking kids through my day to maybe one day see some of them running music organizations and fulfilling their dreams.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got my undergrad in music, but my college didn’t have a music business or arts administration degree at the time. Once I realized it was what I wanted to do, I went on to pursue my MS in arts administration at Drexel University. I now am adjunct faculty for the same school!

I basically run the management side of a youth orchestra, which means different things depending on the day of the week! What I’m most passionate about is raising funding so that we can serve as many kids as possible through excellent musical training.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being on the business side of artists and creatives, I love mentoring them to show how to get funding for their artistic projects. Mentoring goes beyond that, as it also allows me a chance to help set-up their businesses, how to plan strategically and other lessons to help strengthen the non-artistic side of their career.

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

It’s simple: buy pieces of art directly from creators and buy tickets to events by creators.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.gdyo.org

Image Credits
I sent other photos via email