We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brian Adamczyk a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brian , 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 had the pleasure and good fortune of earning a full-time living as an artist and educator since 2005. Initially, I graduated college in Philadelphia with a degree in Saxophone performance, but had also been actively studying clarinet and flute. This enabled me to take on a more wide-ranging array of performance work, in a number of different settings and venues. Additionally, I was offered a part time teaching job while still being a student in college, and realized I had a deep love, and ability, as a teacher. Almost simultaneous with my budding performance career at the time, I quickly began adding part time teaching loads, and opened my own woodwind studio shortly there after that I proceeded to run for almost 20 years. One of the most formative teaching experiences I held for many years was within the Community Scholars Program at Temple University. This was a Saturday program designed for K-12 students from the local surrounding areas of North Philadelphia, that the University subsidized to ensure extremely low cost lessons to the families. I witnessed the true power of music from this experience, watching countless students find their identity in music which went on to positively change the trajectory of their lives. Around 2014, after balancing dozens of weekly teaching commitments, my own studio, and daily performances, I became interested in doing arts administrative work. This began as a simple add on to my existing workload, in coordinating private lesson programs, recitals, and eventually more full time work with venues such as the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and the Brooklyn Music School. After focusing my efforts the last 10 years on these administrative, mission focused nonprofits, I’ve discovered that I feel just as dedicated and passionate about helping other through music, as I do playing and teaching it. In conclusion, keeping my skill sets focused and versatile, while embracing a large volume of weekly work hours, has provided me with the ability to earn a living wage within the arts.

Brian , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a classically trained musician, with a Bachelor’s degree in Jazz Performance from the University of the Arts. After graduating in 2005, I began an active career as a professional woodwind specialist, doubling on all saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, piccolo, Bansuri flutes, Dizi flutes, oboe and English horn. This has allowed me to be hired for a range of settings, including orchestras, jazz combos, concert bands, recording sessions, tours, and musical theater work. I also spent about 15 years as a private instructor, ensemble director, and actively ran my own woodwind studio from roughly 2005-2020. As of 2014, I began exploring different areas of work as an arts administrator. This began with basic things like coordinating private lesson programs or overseeing recital and logistics. Additionally, I began doing a lot of music outreach work with Title 1 schools in Philadelphia, as well as serving as an artist liaison, curriculum writer, event coordinator, and program officer. Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in curating new music projects, facilitating new art to various communities, and working within missions centered around access to the arts. I’m particularly proud of an ongoing effort I’ve been developing between New York City and Paris, in the form of an expansive cultural exchange. This will eventually take on many different forms, from a student exchange program, community music school partnership, and general mixing of culture through the arts between both cities. I just concluded a project that I curated, produced and funded call “Altered States” The main concept was identifying specific musicians from both Paris and New York to come together as a band for the first time, and perform totally free, new music from scratch. The premiere in Paris occurred to a packed house at the legendary venue, New Morning. In New York, the band premiered at two venues, one in The Village, the other in Brooklyn. Seeing this experiment not only come together, but to see the joy and newly found synergy between the musicians certainly resonated deeply with audiences. I was very proud of the outcome, and plan to do many other efforts in 2025 and beyond to continue on this cultural momentum.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have had to be resilient on many different occasions over the last two decades as an artist. However, I believe one more recent experience likely proved to be the ultimate test. This probably comes without saying, but the challenges that all arts nonprofits face, not to mention in a place like New York City paired with diminishing funding and a weak economy are all too real. In my current position as Executive Director of the Brooklyn Music School, we truly reached a financial position around May 2024 that almost resulted in the closing of the school, a 115 year old institution dedicated to providing low cost programming to the community. Though many aspects and issues that led to this financial crisis were out of my control, I still forged ahead by holding myself completely accountable as the leader of the organization. Hosting townhalls, making difficult staffing reductions, and being so transparent with the community was truly the ultimate test. However, I was able to put together an emergency fundraising campaign, and worked closely with Roots bassist Mark Kelley to facilitate a benefit concert with some of the most high profile musicians in the city to raise awareness. This got the attention of the media from three different channels, and I had the opportunity to conduct interviews and news segments to the general public about our situation. To my delight, several major donations came through right away, in addition to over 500 individual donors from the immediate community. In the end, we stabilized, restructured, and thankfully had the ability to continue running all programs during the summer months. As we entered a new school year and semester in September of this year, the organization still has its challenges, but the financials have continued to be stable.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Overall, helping to find creative and new ways to facilitate what the joy of music and performing arts brings to society is the underlying motivation behind almost everything I’ve done throughout my career. While I enjoyed the thrill of performing for many years, and witnessed the profound impact that teaching has, my main motivation now lies in putting all the pieces together for these artistic endeavors. Witnessing a new composition performance to an audience that otherwise wouldn’t have had access to it is a driving force that keeps me inspired. Watching the students at Brooklyn Music School’s very life trajectory change for the better through their love, dedication, or social commitment through the arts is equally gratifying as when I was working as the instructor delivering the programming myself. So in short, it is seeing the joy, positive change, and social impact that seems to be driving my current professional work and direction.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @brian_adamczyk
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/brian-adamczyk-470686b