We recently connected with Allison Cross and have shared our conversation below.

Allison, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I have been able to earn a full time living ‘doing music’ by having different types of music services that I offer, and through increasing my price slowly over time. After I graduated from music school, I didn’t have a choice but to work whatever I could get. I did supplement my day job (doing music therapy sessions) with music performance, but the performance work was inconsistent and had a lot of unpaid hours (rehearsals, driving, meetings, etc)

After becoming self-employed as an MT, I have been able to increase my rates and also be more selective with the projects that I take on. I’ve found that doing interviews and public facing performance work is invaluable in attracting new work!

Lastly, hiring subcontractors and continuing to free up more time, has allowed me to move away from being the primary facilitator. I took an arts administrative job to gain more experience, to increase my managerial capacity, and of course this allows for added income and space for new contracts to be developed.

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 am a multi-genre musician, trombonist, music therapist and administrator. I am an educator, I help to design music camps, I do consulting with health and non-health music-related organizations, I am often hired to speak to younger folks about a given topic and currently serve as Local Partnerships Manager for the Louisville Orchestra. In that capacity I am developing new relationships in the community through finding locations to book small groups of orchestral musicians. For example, I produce the LO’s family library series. (ie. Show up to the venue, set up the room, provide management service for the musicians, and facilitate the show with community members). The hope is for the LO to serve a community health role of bringing groups together to accelerate community recovery and connection. Lastly, I have worked as a music therapist for the past 14 years. I am a music therapy business owner and have supervised several students and interns. There are 5 people working within the company currently.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I didn’t know how much musicians are uneducated in the business world until getting major ideas and resources moved away from me. It’s been imperative to continue to grow my musicianship alongside having business awareness and being an active participant in the local business ecosystem.

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

I have appreciated having my talking points and personal opinions validated through research efforts coming out of the local university. I have helped to work on 2 music related studies and it’s a pleasure to participate in and consult on this level of academia with my connections to the music community.

Contact Info:

• Website: restorativesoundmt.com
• Instagram: @restorativesound

Image Credits
Jeffery Parish took the black and white photos