We recently connected with Dianne Betkowski and have shared our conversation below.
Dianne , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?
I was always very musical and rhythmic, and as a nine year in New York City with my family, I found an old out of tune guitar with one string missing in an alley. I’m a cellist now, and had never played a guitar before this. I figured out a few places to put my fingers down on the frets that made three or four pleasing chord-like sounds, and began to compose songs to them. In the coming weeks our family drove to upstate New York to take hikes and visit country general stores. I always brought this guitar with me everywhere and I would sit out on the steps of the stores to continue my song-writing and singing. I was surprised that people left me money on their way into and out of the stores. That’s the first dollar I’d ever earned as a creative!
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’m a cellist and composer. I’ve performed, toured, and recorded on my cello with major symphony orchestras such as the St. Louis Symphony, Honolulu, and Utah Symphony, among others. I have written pieces performed by chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras as well. For most of my career I was deeply involved as a cellist with classical music, though I had a longing to play non-classical music. At first I started a concert series called Denver Eclectic Concerts, which juxtaposed classical and non-classical music on the same programs, and there was always a collaboration at the end of each concert-the classical and non-classical musicians had to find, arrange, compose, or improvise something to perform together. It was unique in the world, no one was doing this anywhere! This is how I met Miguel Espinoza and joined his world music flamenco/jazz fusion ensemble, Miguel Espinoza Fusion. I’d invited him to perform on my series and we ended up composing music together. Our music has a heartbeat of authentic flamenco music enveloped by musical styles and influences from around the world, including Middle Eastern, Jazz, Afro-Caribbean, Brazilian, classical Indian, Native American, and Western European classical, among others. We compose our own original and stunning music that is soulful, rhythmically exhilarating, harmonically complex, and stylistically unique. We perform it in concert halls, jazz clubs, lounges, living rooms, gardens, parks, and anywhere else we are invited to share it. We do university residencies all over the country and teach music lessons here at home in the Denver Metro area. We also are beginning to perform with Symphony orchestras; our symphonic debut will be with the Austin Symphony in January of 2026.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Our goal is to bring people together and to remind us all of our humanity. That would be a lovely goal at any time in our lives, but it is a particularly compelling goal right now, one that seems more difficult that ever. Music, especially instrumental music like ours, transcends language and culture barriers. Anyone who make music can get together with anyone else who makes music and find a way to make music together, forming bonds and friendships. Listeners from any part of the world can connect with music from any other part of the world; we are hoping to share the love of humanity through our original and heartfelt music. We want to bring people together.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Here is a story about how we really haven’t built our audience on social media! We are people who work really, really hard at what we do: we compose, play, create, work together in person, either rehearsing or teaching or doing, live and old-fashioned. We are not so good with social media, which has hurt us, honestly. What we offer is authentic and truly great music, but self-promotion isn’t our strong suit. I assume that anyone starting to build a social media presence is younger and better at it than those who have come before them. It’s a shame that social media presence is such an influential criteria: more exposure equals more engagement, but that’s the world we live in.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://miguelespinozafusion.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/miguelespinozafusion
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=miguel+espinoza+fusion
Image Credits
Dog Daze Photos