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

Chad, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?

From a young age, a career in classical music is laid out as a clear path. You’re told that, as long as you practice, practice, practice, it will be as simple as connecting the dots. .
In the case of most music students, however, the college “dot” and professional job “dot” don’t connect the way the others did. As a matter of fact, there is no dot in sight.

While pursuing a masters degree in trumpet performance, I quickly realized that I would have to find a way to support myself as a musician, while living in one of the most expensive cities in the United States, San Francisco.

Up to that point, my musical studies had trained me to be an excellent trumpet player. But, college did not teach me how to earn a living. I never learned how to build and maintain a flourishing private teaching studio. I never learned the organizational strategies required to stage a public recital or the public speaking skills needed to build deep connections with an audience.

Through trial and error, I built a successful freelance career, piecing together teaching opportunities with performances in orchestras across California.

Having studied conducting in graduate school, I also decided to found my own classical music group, Elevate Ensemble, a professional new music ensemble that paired works from local, rising composers with underappreciated gems of the past. Over five seasons, I played nearly every role within the organization, which taught me how different departments must work together in order to foster financial growth, keep musician morale high, and engage various communities with expertly curated content. I collaborated with a team for promoting shows, writing grant proposals, and running fundraising campaigns, in addition to fulfilling my artistic duties of designing and conducting programs and presenting pre-concert talks.

Through these experiences, I realized that orchestra conducting felt much more natural than trumpet, so I pursued it with everything I had. The work I did with Elevate served as a launching pad for many more conducting positions. In 2023, I wrapped up a conducting fellowship with the New World Symphony and began serving as both the Music Director and Conductor of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra in Illinois and as the Artistic Director of IlluminArts in Miami.

Along the way, I began to lead workshops which taught young musicians the business skills needed to successfully navigate the music world. In 2022, I published a book on the subject, “You Earned a Music Degree. Now What?”

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

By the age of thirteen, I knew that I wanted to become a professional classical musician. Trumpet was my axe, and it became a gateway for me to travel and meet other young, ambitious musicians from around the world. I received my Bachelor’s of Music Degree in trumpet performance from the Eastman School of Music and a Master’s Degree from San Francisco State University.

Following grad school, I decided that I wanted to pivot from trumpet playing and pursue a career as an orchestra conductor, founding and directing my own group called Elevate Ensemble. I was able to successfully build a core audience of millennials from the tech and finance sectors, a demographic that in the United States is not know for being massive classical music lovers. I collaborated with photographers, poets and chefs to create unique, cross-artistic classical music experiences that stood out from the traditional concert format.

In addition to my work with Elevate, I conducted youth orchestras and community orchestras. Eventually, I began working as an Assistant Conductor to the San Francisco Symphony before moving to Miami to become the Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony and assistant to renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The New World Symphony is one of the most experimental, cutting-edge classical music organizations on the planet. In concerts I conducted I was able to work with light designers, videographers and animators to explore fresh ways of presenting the classical music I loved so much.

In 2023 I was named Music Director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra in Illinois, only the fifth Music Director in the orchestra’s 74-year history. I was also named Artistic Director of the Miami-based IlluminArts, where I curate site-specific classical music programs in collaboration with the leading museums, art galleries, and historic venues of Miami.

It is my mission to make everyone fall in love with classical music, so the work I have done building new audiences is where my greatest source of pride lies.

Teaching young musicians the business and entrepreneurial skills needed to succeed in the music world through workshops and through my book “You Earned a Music Degree. Now What?” has also been a deeply fulfilling piece of my career.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is to make everyone fall in love with classical music. I believe that classical music is truly powerful because it can explore the entire range of emotions that make up the human experience. In a single orchestral work, a composer might take us through stages of joy, love, fear, pain, loss, anger and acceptance.

In addition to great music of the past, I want everyone to also be eager to explore contemporary classical music. Composers of today are sharing their experiences of the world we currently live in through music. Living composers are influenced by all of the music and genres that have come before us, everything from blues and rock to hip hop and electronic music. Supporting artists of the present is one of the most important things we can do. Throughout history, we have always turned to artists to express what we are feeling or what we want to feel.

So I encourage everyone to at least once buy a rush ticket to your local symphony (yes, most symphonies have very affordable rush tickets that can be purchased the day of a show for as little as $10 – $20!) Be curious, keep your ears open, and let the beautiful sound of 80 to 100 musicians who have dedicated their lives to this art form sweep you away on a musical journey!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most powerful aspect of being an artist is understanding that people come to us for support. Someone might attend one of our concerts or listen to one of our albums because the stories we are sharing are just what they need at that moment in their lives. Maybe it is an escape for them. Maybe the concert hall makes them feel safe. Or the music makes them feel seen. Art connects all of us. It truly is a universal language.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.chadgoodmanmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chadgoodmanmaestro/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chadgoodmanmusic/?ref=profile
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-goodman-94baa941
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/chadgoodmanmusic
• Other: Link to my book “You Earned a Music Degree. Now What?” https://a.co/d/3mWhhih

Image Credits
Main Image: Jiyang Chen Additional Images: All four “action shots” (where I am conducting the orchestra or speaking with microphone form the stage): New World Symphony Image of me studying music scores at desk: Carolyn Buhrow